


Baby Hold Onto Me

by ourcrashdownblue



Category: Noelle (2019), Saturday Night Live, Weekend Update (SNL)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Yoga, And Lots of It, Bill Hader - Freeform, Boys Kissing, Christmas Fluff, Coming Out, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cute, Day drinking, Domestic Fluff, Drunken Shenanigans, Fluff and Angst, For fans of, Gay Disaster Nick, Homophobia, Kind of a crossover, Kissing, M/M, Maybe more like an AU??, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, Morning Cuddles, Movie Night, Pining, Schmoop, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Sooooo much pining, Stefon, This fic has everything..., Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Touching, Yoga Instructor Seth, bisexual!Seth, gay!Nick Kringle, obviously, or - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21689242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourcrashdownblue/pseuds/ourcrashdownblue
Summary: DISCLAIMER: I have absolutely no rights to any of the Noelle characters (Disney) or the Seth Meyers character (NBC) or stories created by these companies.  Just having fun.Where was Nick Kringle during his first two months he was in Phoenix, Arizona?  How did he end up teaching yoga?  Did he meet a sweet, adorable yoga instructor with the nicest smile Nick's ever seen? And what happens when his sister, Ellie, finds him and wants him to leave Phoenix and the sweet yoga instructor to go back to the North Pole?Not sure if this counts as a Noelle (2019)/Weekend Update crossover or  Weekend Update Noelle (2019) AU, take your pick.  I just saw Noelle (for Bill Hader) and I've been watching a lot of Stefon recently, and loving all of the nervous gay energy.
Relationships: Nick Kringle & Noelle Kringle, Nick Kringle/Seth Meyers
Comments: 9
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick Kringle's problems and what he decides to do about them.

Nick’s brain pounded in his skull.

Thud...Thud...

It was the kind of headache Nick got if he played his Christmas albums too loud. The kind he gets if Ellie uses too much paste to make her one-of-a-kind Christmas cards and the plastic-y, chemical smell starts seeping into his sinuses. But this time, his headache is all his own fault. And, of course, it was the sleigh.

I’m such a failure.

Nick’s mother is doing her best to get the swollen bump on his head to go down with the aid of an ice pack, with slow success.  
“Don’t worry, hon--Santa, we all make mistakes. But did Rudolph give up when the other reindeer were making fun of him? Calling him names behind his back, and making him feel just terrible--”  
“Mother, I think I get it!” he said.  
“Sorry, Santa...anyway, my point is: we all make mistakes. Part of the Christmas spirit is deciding that you’re not going to let anything get in the way being the best you you can be--accidents included!” she chirped.

Maybe, but what if the best me I can be isn’t the Santa me…No, I am Santa. Dad was Santa. His dad was Santa. And even Papa’s dad was Santa. And on and on and on. There isn’t anyone else to be Santa if I’m not.

Just then, merry footsteps danced up the walk, bags rustled, and Ellie’s angelic voice entered the room even before she did.  
“Santa, I got you a new scarf!” she said.  
From head to toe Noelle Kringle was decked out in shades of red and pink, with a striped beret to match. Always at the height of holiday fashion. Eagerly, she set everything from her shopping trip down on the entry room table. Ellie began to tell him about a book she’d gotten when she finally turned around and saw the sorry state he was in. Her dark blue eyes flashed like they always did when she was frustrated. However, before their mother had a chance to explain, Santa’s Helpers chimed in, singing out the details in painful clarity.

Cousin Gabe took the opportunity to explain how updating the sleigh’s GPS technology might fix the problem in the future, but Nick knew better. A new GPS would be jolly and all, but it isn’t worth broken Christmas lights if the Santa driving it couldn’t land to save his life.

“Why don’t we all just give Santa a moment,” Mother said as she gestured Ellie over to the corner of the room.  
Nick peeked over the couch as Mother and Ellie whispered to each other. Well, Mrs. Claus was not a great whisperer, so Nick heard nearly every word:  
“...Not going well...way behind schedule...or else we’re not going to be ready for Christmas!” 

Eyes the size of Christmas cookies, Nick dropped his head back against the pillow, sending another solid thud reverberating in his skull.  
Oh. My. Garland. W-What does the universe want from me?! I’m trying so hard! I’m doing my best! And I’m still not good enough…  
Oh fig.

It had been an awful week. Ellie, bless her heart, had tried to give Nick a crash course in Santahood--with disastrous results. He’d failed and discerning between the naughty and nice kids, he’d failed at guessing what people wanted for Christmas, and as the cherry on his humbug sundae, he’d fallen down a chimney and landed right on his bottom. And the worst part was Ellie. Not her exactly, it was the way she looked at him with such love and such belief. And each time he messed up she would sigh and keep smiling, being ever so patient with him, with a lost cause. Nick was her big brother and he was letting her down by not being the Santa she thought he already was. It had been an awful week.  
Hot chocolate fixes everything, though. Temporarily at least. The dark sweetness of the chocolate, the minty bite of the peppermint shavings sprinkled on top, and the smooth whipped cream felt soothing, like a warm blanket settling in Nick’s tummy. Sweet steam wafted up from the mug, warming his face in the polar air. The kind of chilly air that makes your bones rattle around inside your body. Was it weird that it sometimes he felt like the air he breathed was his enemy?

“Sometimes,” he began. “ I...I dream of getting out and finding someplace warm…”

As he talked, Nick was well aware of the line he was tip-toeing. Talk about a hypothetical life off somewhere warm was one thing, but the hope it sparked in his chest felt like a dangerous thing to toy with. But he’d kept his dreams to himself for so long--too long--and to admit them to Ellie...well it was kind of pointless after all. What could she possibly do to help him? She couldn’t give him the one thing he wanted: a different destiny. But Nick supposed that venting his feelings might help at least a little bit.  
“Well you can’t be Santa if you’re having a nervous breakdown...” she said. 

She had a point, he was no use to anybody if he let his current emotions get too far out of the tight place in his heart that he had crammed them down into so long ago. And when she brought up the travel magazines that their father had given to Ellie when they were little it felt like a door to a twinkling new world opened in Nick’s mind. “You need to look in those magazines, pick a place, get away for the weekend,” she said simply, taking a sip of her hot cocoa.

Of course. It was perfect! He stared blankly at Ellie for a second and then off into the distance, his mind suddenly dancing with palm trees and sunshine and swimming pools. They had a sleigh, for peppermint’s sake! He could go on vacation anywhere! Why had he never thought of this?  
Because I might never come back…  
No. That wasn’t an option. He had responsibilities, people who depended on him. People he knew, in his heart of hearts, he was going to disappoint when he failed on Christmas Eve. Little children everywhere would wake up on Christmas morning to find either no presents if he couldn’t manage to overcome his claustrophobia and maneuver down the chimneys. Or, they’d wake up to find the absolute opposite of what they had asked for because he’d delivered the wrong presents or he’d guessed wrong to begin with. And would that be the end of it? Of course not! Then he’d have to see the sorrowful looks on the faces of the elves, Cousin Gabe won’t be able to make eye contact with him, His mother will probably cry--and then there’s Ellie. She’d be utterly, and irrevocably devastated. And it would be all his fault.

Nick Kringle would be solely responsible for ruining Christmas for the entire world. He decided right then that he couldn’t stand another minute in the North Pole.

After their hot chocolate break, Ellie had prodded Nick to do just one more lesson from the Book of Santa before the sun went down but Nick politely refused. From the look on his face she could tell that Nick needed some alone time, so she let it go without any more fuss.

While Ellie headed for the ice field for a game of tag with the puffins, Nick made a bee-line for the Kringle cottage. His mind was fuzzy and all of his thoughts had a frost to their edges stopping him from seeing anything clearly. As his boots crunched along in the snow and the ear flaps of his hat flap flap flapped against the sides of his numb cheeks, Nick’s mind was a dark place. Luckily for him, his mother was too wrapped up in A Christmas Carol to do anything more than throw a “Hi, honey!” over her shoulder when he walked in and went right up the stairs to his room. 

He shut the heavy, intricately carved door and locked the ancient doorknob. He let his bod melt into a puddle on his bed and let the tears fall freely onto the reindeer embroidered on his bedspread. He knew that he had a wonderful life here, a life full of peace and love and cheer. He had a life with a purpose--he shouldn’t want to leave. But, in the same way that he had no choice in his destiny as Santa Claus, Nick had no choice in the gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach. He wiped the mix of tears, snot, and sweat from his face--as he’d been careless and not taken off his heavy cloak and hat. Sniffling, Nick reached under his bed and fished out an old caramel tin with caricatured drawings of Santa--which Nick had always thought looked nothing like his father--that he stored his favorite things from when he was a kid in. He popped off the lid and the only things he bothered to notice were the magazines he placed along the sides.

As soon as Nick saw the magazine that sat on the top of the pile, he remembered precisely why he’d sneakily borrowed it from Ellie and “forgotten” to return it. It was a newer issue, but still at least ten years old, probably the last magazine their father had brought home for Ellie before she deemed herself too old for silly magazines. Nick looked into the most striking blue eyes he’d ever seen looking up at him from the front cover and the crisp white hair that was absolutely nothing like his father’s white hair. He absently traced his fingers over the words Vanity Fair and the outline of the most flawless face he’d ever seen, riding the wave of butterflies that fluttered in his stomach. It was a feeling he’d experienced only ever experienced before when he’d first laid eyes on this magazine, and it was still a feeling he didn’t have the words to describe. 

“...Anderson Cooper…” he mumbled to himself, reading the bolded print and feeling strangely understood by those endearing eyes. 

Reluctantly setting it aside, Nick flipped through the other magazines page by page, once again captivated by the bright pictures, snappy stories, and glossy paper of each issue. He re-read the story on Jennifer Aniston and marvelled at the top ten Christmas decorations that he could make on a budget.

Fascinating!

Finally, Nick flipped to the Travel and Leisure section of one of the magazines. Each page screamed of tropical weather and Bermuda shorts. Each destination more serene than the last. How was he ever going to decide which one he’d go to? Costa Rica with its beaches and coral reefs? Or Spain with its sublime climate and cultural sites? What about Mexico City with its mariachi bands and Aztec ruins? There were too many choices! Then, one of the feature boxes across from the Mexico City page caught Nick’s eye. The small picture showed a muscular man in tight pants--like the kind Ellie wore--standing serenely against a gorgeous sunrise with one leg making a triangle against the other and his palms are centered together on his chest. Nick longed for the look of absolute peace on the man’s face. The tagline read: Come catch your breath with relaxing desert yoga! He looked up to the loopy cursive spelling out “Phoenix, Arizona”. Nick beamed, tears long dried, feeling lightness in his chest that hadn’t been there in ages.

Quickly, Nick grabbed a thick satchel out of his closet and poured the magazine stack inside. He threw in his thermals, cinnamon-pine cone deodorant, and a smattering of clothes that would fit. He didn’t know when the next time was that he’d see his room again, but his satchel items should tide him over. He would’ve stolen a looser-fitting pair of Ellie’s tight pants, but Nick knew stealing was naughty and he already felt naughty enough for one day.

He slipped out the back door without so much as a peep from the whole household. He snuck over to the stable and creaked the front doors open with a snowflake’s touch. Padding over to each reindeer and gently lead them to their harnesses. He had always been intimidated by the reindeer because he could tell that even they knew that a terrible sleigh driver. Nick finally hitched the last reindeer into his place, and scooched onto the cushy sleigh seat.

Oh garland.

In all his daydreaming of exotic vacations, Nick had forgotten the daunting fact that in order to get to any of those places, Nick would have to fly the sleigh there by himself.

“Okay, okay, come one...you got this, Kringle,” Nick muttered, “I have done this before, um...On Dasher?” Dasher’s hooves began to thump on the stable floor, “Alright, yeah! On Dasher! On Dancer! On Prancer, and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donner and Blitzen!”

The stable vibrated with hoof beats and in perfect synchronization the reindeer clicked their majestic antlers together. But before Nick had tightly gripped the reins, the sleigh was whooshed up into the night sky. It was a stunning night, the stars twinkled like diamonds and the dazzling moon watched over the North Pole as many of the elves began to put on their nightclothes. The only thing, Nick imagined, that broke up the beauty of the evening was perhaps the staggering sleigh that bounced up and down in the sky, or perhaps it was poor Nick screaming and holding onto the edges of the sleigh for dear life. After a few nauseating minutes of horrific ascent, the sleigh had climbed above the clouds and came to an even keel, its pace smoothing out. Nick clutched his stomach and counted to twenty before he felt that he could safely move a muscle without vomiting.  
Once Nick got his equilibrium back, it finally hit him: he’d done it. He was on his way! He quickly shucked the backpack onto the seat next to him and grabbed out the stack of magazines. What was the place called again? He found the yoga page and ripped it out. Now the next challenge: remembering how to enter a destination into the GPS that Cousin Gabe had installed. It was voice-activated that much he knew.

“Um, D-Destination: Phoenix, Ar-a-zana,” Nick said.

“Please specify destination in Phoenix, Arizona,”the Nice GPS Lady replied.

Nick looked again at the glossy page.

“Find: 'desert yoga',” Nick said, the corners of his mouth turning up without his knowledge.

“Changing Destination to Desert Spirit Yoga, Phoenix, Arizona.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick's sleigh ride and how he meets a certain dark-haired yoga instructor ;)
> 
> P.S. I think I fixed the formatting errors I was having!

At the sound of a persistent _beep beep_ from the GPS, Nick bolted upright in his sleep. He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep, the excitement of the day must’ve taken a lot more out of him than he’d thought.

_Bad job, Nick! You’re never supposed to fall asleep at the reins!_

But Nick didn’t have time time berate himself further, it was landing time. Luckily the Nice GPS Lady gave fairly detailed instructions on how and when to descend, but that wasn’t what Nick was worried about. He’d never had a successful landing. Some went better than others, of course, but he always had at least one bruise or pulled muscle at the end of every landing. With his hands beginning to sweat inside his fluffy mittens--which perfectly matched his coat--as he followed the Nice GPS Lady’s cues. Nick could feel the thick wooden frame of the sleigh shutter each time they dipped down further towards the clouds, but not a bad start.

The snowball really hit the fan once the sleigh had reached under the cloud line, then the very real thought occurred to Nick that he wasn’t quite sure where he was going to land a gigantic sleigh and eight reindeer. And he was going to have to make up his mind soon because he was now hovering over city lights from, what he assumed, was Phoenix, Arizona. Under his thick woolen coat, cold sweat poured down Nick’s back. This could not end well. He tried taking deep breaths, just like the Book of Santa teaches you to do in case of an emergency, but with every level they climbed down the deep breaths morphed into fast-paced squeaks.

On the second to last dip down, Nick sneezed. He sneezed with enough force that he accidentally jerked the reins hard to the right and the whole operation spiraled downward and out of control. Nick cried out louder than he would later care to admit.

Through his screams, Nick did his best to pull up again, resulting in a zig-zagging nightmare that turned his stomach like a cotton candy machine. The Nice GPS Lady was directing him towards Desert Spirit Yoga but Nick had very little hope that he’d make it there in one piece. As the city lights grew closer and closer, Nick tugged the reins every which direction, hoping upon hope that they wouldn’t fly straight into the side of a building. They wove between rooftops, nearly clipping an old church’s spire, when the Nice GPS Lady informed him that it was time to land. Since Nick did not trust himself to gracefully set the sleigh down he opted for the alleyway beside the building--hopefully minimizing the amount of broken bones he would get. At the very last second Nick panicked and squeezed his eyes shut. The moment the runners hit the asphalt Nick’s body slammed into the lip with his head making a solid clunk against the jolly metal railing. Then everything went black.

Seth Meyers had just finished an episode of _Lost_ , set his iPad on his bedside table, and turned off the lights when a sound like a dining room table getting thrown into a blender came from the alley. In less than three seconds Seth had darted across his studio apartment in his slippers, just barely remembering to grab his coat and keys as he raced out the door.

When Seth threw open the 1st floor back door, it wasn’t the body lying on the ground that took his breath away. Whatever Seth had expected to see, this was the farthest thing from it. On a skinny alley in a mostly commercial neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona sat a magnificent sleigh and real-life reindeer. No part of that sentence made _any_ fucking sense.

“It...It’s n-not even Christmas yet…” Seth mumbled in awe.

But what Seth’s eyes had glazed over in his shock, rattled him out of his trance. The body! Partially on the ground, and still semi in the sleigh a dark-haired man in a thick coat and buffalo-plaid trapper hat was groaning.

 _But he definitely doesn’t have a white beard_ , Seth caught himself thinking.

The man was conscious-- _thank God_ \--but only slightly. Seth knelt beside the man, cradling his head and upper body which were lolling off the deck of the sled. Seth cupped his free hand around the man’s cheek.

“Hey, hey, can you hear me?” The man’s eyes began to flutter and his body looked like it was attempting to wiggle in Seth’s arms but not quite getting it. When the man tried to move his head he grimaced and struggled like he was trying to get out of his hat. So, setting the man’s head in the crook of his elbow like how he’d held his baby niece’s, Seth pulled the trapper hat off. He lightly grazed his fingers over the man’s dark wavy hair, trying to figure out if he’d hit his head and where. As he skimmed over a small bump under his hair the man groaned and wiggled again.

_Not as bad as I was expecting._

Suddenly, the man’s eyes flew open and dark blue eyes met Seth’s. There was a kind of vulnerability and child-like fear in those eyes that Seth wondered if the dark had been playing a trick on him and this was actually a teenager. But the stubble on his chin and the start of crow’s feet washed that thought away.

“Are you okay?” Seth said.

The man bolted up, scaring the shit out of Seth. But as soon as he had, his body began to wobble and he fell right back into Seth’s waiting arms.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Just take it easy, buddy, just calm down. You’ve got a hell of a bump on your head,” Seth said as he reached his frozen free hand up and lightly held it to the bump, “You’re okay, I gotcha.”

The man flinched when Seth touched him but relaxed when he felt the iciness of Seth’s fingers. It didn’t snow in Phoenix, but the desert air could get pretty cold at night.

“Can you tell me your name?” Seth said

“MmanamssNckkk…” the man babbled, nestling closer to Seth’s chest.

“What was that, buddy?” Seth lowered his face closer. He saw the man gulp, open his mouth to speak, then his eyes went wide and the forcibly rolled over in Seth’s arms and threw up roll over blacktop on his other side. Seth crinkled his nose.

_Well, I can’t blame him._

“I-I’m Nick,” the man said as he flopped back into the crook of Seth’s arms, eyes squeezed shut.

“I’m Seth. Seth Meyers.”

For the first time, the man--Nick--seemed to get a good look at him and his face was a mixture of confusion, awe, and...something Seth couldn’t quite describe.

“U-Um, c-could you tell m-me where I a-am, Seth Meyers?” Nick stammered.

If Seth didn’t know any better, he’d have sworn that Nick was blushing a little.

“Uh, yeah. Well, you’re in the alley behind my apartment…in a sleigh,” he said. What else was there to add?

“I-In Phoenix, Ar-a-zana?”

Maybe it was all the adrenaline in his veins from darting down the stairs, but Seth couldn’t help it--he started laughing. Nick looked frightened at the sudden burst of laughter that rippled through Seth, but then he relaxed a little when he saw Seth’s wide smile. Nick’s eyes began to crinkle as a grin overtook his features.

“Huh, yeah, you’re in Phoenix, Ar-iz-o-na,” Seth chuckled then gestured to sleigh and reindeer, "Now, who in the hell are you? And why are you driving a sleigh?”

Nick tensed in Seth’s arms, confusion flooded his face.

_What did I say?_

Nick tried to move away from Seth but immediately winced and stilled again. He squirmed again, more forcefully and so Seth followed his lead and helped him raise his head and torso up to a sitting position. He kept one hand on Nick’s shoulder and the other on the back of his head--just in case--until he was sure that Nick was okay on his own.

“That’s a naughty word, Seth Meyers,” Nick said.

Those were not at all the words he had expected to come out of Nick’s mouth.

“Uh, I-I’m sorry,” was all he could think of. Nick leaned his body against the sleigh’s paneling and looked up at Seth. He seemed to believe that Seth genuinely didn’t mean anything by it and smiled to himself.

Was he blushing again?

“That’s alright, I’m sorry I just am not used to that so it startled me a little,” he said.

“You’re not from around here are ya?” Seth said. Nick began to stammer again, not really words, but the beginnings of words like he couldn’t quite get a grip on a start to his explanation. Seth squatted back down and patted Nick’s mittened hand.

“Hey, hey, take your time, alright? Just tell me where you’re from.”

“Well...I’m from...the North Pole…” Nick said and Seth threw his head back and laughed.

“You’re shitting me!” Seth said, quickly catching his error, “Sorry, sorry, my bad. But seriously, where are you from? Iceland? Toronto?”

“The North Pole,” Nick said again.

“No you’re not,” Seth grinned, “You must’ve banged your head harder than I thought.” “I swear my name is Nicholas Kringle, I’m from the North Pole and...and I can prove it! Help me up, please?”

Seth wasn’t sure he knew when the last he heard an adult man say ‘please’ before was. He stood up and reached out and took Nick’s mittened hands. Slowly, Seth helped Nick pull himself up onto the driver’s bench and re-adjust his head to the movement.

“I think there’s a pair of white boots with purple laces in the back of the sleigh, about my size, could you grab them for me please?” Nick said. Where the fuck is this going? Seth thought. An incredible feeling building just beneath his skin, Seth bent down into the carriage are and pushed aside a velvet bag to find--sure enough--the purple-laced boots Nick was talking about.

“These?” Seth said, passing Nick the boots. Seth was shaking with excitement, because, no matter what he said, if there was ever any proof that the North Pole actually existed a big-ass sleigh and eight reindeer in his alleyway would qualify.

“Yes! Thank you,” Nick took the boots from Seth, “Now Seth, don’t freak out. Okay?”

_Now I’m fucking definitely going to freak out._

Nick clicked the two boots together and out of thin air two ice skate blades appeared on the soles of the shoe. Seth’s hands flew to his face, making a teepee over his mouth and nose. He would’ve screamed, if his brain was functioning properly. His eyes flew back to Nick who looked like he was bracing for a brand new string of “naughty” words to leave Seth’s mouth.

“So, are--” Nick began, but Seth cut him off.

“Do it again. Ch-Change them back.”

Nick did as he was asked and clicked them together again, the blades vanishing once again.

 _No goddamn_ way _._

Seth took a few steps backwards and Nick looked hurt. Seth took a deep breath and stepped back up to Nick, still eyeing the boots suspiciously.

“May I?” he asked, and Nick nodded.

He took them from Nick, holding them like they were flower petals. He clicked them together, and click the blades reappeared.

It’s all real.

“Y-You're, honest to God, not k-kidding are you?!” Seth beamed at Nick, tapping the boots together again and again watching with an innocent kind of joy he hadn’t felt since before puberty, “I can’t believe it! I-I mean I can see it, I just…”

Nick, despite his more ashen complexion looked like he was truly excited about Seth’s discovery too. But that happiness seemed to disappear once again when he gripped his stomach and looked like another wave of nausea had hit him.

Seth set down the magic boot (what a time to be alive) and set a hand on Nick’s back.

“Alright, buddy, let’s get you inside. Since Phoenix is hundreds of miles from the North Pole I’m guessing you don’t have a place to stay tonight. Lucky for you, I just broke up with my girlfriend and will probably grow into a lonely, lonely old man so you can crash here as long as you need,” Seth said only half joking.

Nick seemed to hesitate for a moment, but gave Seth one more glance over before nodding his head and reaching out a hand for help. Seth took his mittened hand and let Nick lean on him as he slowly rose to his feet. He swayed for a moment and, instinctively, Seth reached his other hand out and placed it on Nick’s hip to steady him. One foot at a time, the two men slowly lowered Nick onto the blacktop until Seth and Nick’s faces were only a few inches apart. Without even meaning to, Seth’s eyes caught sight of Nick’s chapped and a stinging red lips.

“Um,” Seth cleared his throat and looked back down at the ground, “Alright, let’s see how you do with walking.”

Slinging Nick’s arm over the back of his neck and wrapped one of his arms around the taller man’s waist, Seth led them towards the stairwell door.

Suddenly, Nick stopped, “Wait! Tinsel!"

" _Tinsel?"_

"I can’t just leave the sleigh here!”

Together they walked back over to the sleigh--making sure not to step in the vomit--and Nick collected his backpack and the teh Anderson Cooper magazine from the seat. Seth acted as an anchor so that Nick could lean over to the GPS and direct it back to the North Pole. They stood back and watched as the reindeer got a running start and then leaped majestically into the air.

“Are you sure they can fly on their own?” Seth said.

“Look at them, they’re flying even better on their own.” They turned back toward the building and, although Nick seemed to be walking steadily on his own, Seth kept his body close to Nick’s--ya know, for safety’s sake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! I should still have this fic finished and uploaded before Christmas! Let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick's first night in Ar-a-zana.

“Sorry the place is such a mess, Nick, I guess I just haven’t cleaned much since…Anyway, do you want some, tea or like, milk, too? Um...beer?” Seth said, already setting a tall glass of water down near Nick on the coffee table.

“Milk sounds wonderful, thank you,” Nick said. Now that his head was clearing up, it dawned on Nick that he had made it. He had made it out of the North Pole. He was in the people world and there were a million things that he wanted to try. There were a million questions that he had. The most relevant being:

“I don’t think I’ve actually had beer, before though, so I don’t know. What does it taste like?”

“Huh, uh beer is…” Seth chuckled and opened the refrigerator door, “Well, I’m gonna have one since it’s been, obviously, quite a night. Do you just wanna try a sip of mine?”

“Yes please, Seth Meyers, “ Nick said.

Nick looked around the little room he found himself in and he didn’t understand at all what Seth thought was messy about it. Sure there were some books and an empty mug on the TV stand, and a pair of tight pants like Ellie’s were flung over the back of the couch. But aside from that, it looked like a comfy home for Seth. Even if he didn’t quite understand why there was a bed in the middle of the room, there was a coziness to the place that hit Nick as soon as they walked into the door. It was nothing like the Christmas cottage that he’d known his whole life, but nevertheless, it felt just as inviting. Maybe he was still just concussed.

Nick wrapped the blanket that Seth had draped around his shoulders tighter to his body, he wasn’t necessarily cold but it was comforting. Seth brought out another tall glass--this one filled with milk--in one hand and a brown glass bottle in the other, condensation starting to bead up on the label. Seth grabbed a nifty little gadget out of his sweatpants pocket and popped open the cap. Nick jumped at the sound it made, and Seth just smirked.

“I’ve gotta warn you, the taste takes some getting used to,” Seth said.

He handed down the bottle to Nick who just looked at it curiously. He held the bottle to his nose and his face crinkled up in disgust.

_I hope it tastes better than it smells._

But he didn’t want to back down now, Seth had been so nice to offer him this experience and by garland, he was going to experience it. Before he could lose his nerve, Nick downed a giant gulp only to instantly go into a coughing fit.

“ _What_ is in that?!”

For the second time that night Seth started giggling, he took the bottle that Nick held as far away from himself as possible and patted Nick’s back.

“You alright, buddy?”

“Yeah--” another fit of coughs, “It’s not...that bad…” Nick said, hitting his chest.

Seth stood next to Nick until he was sure that the coughing fit wasn’t going to turn into a seizure or something weird from his head bump. Then he took his own gulp of beer as Nick watched in amazement and sat down in the chair across from him.

“So...let me make sure that I understand this all correctly…” Seth started.

“Okay.”

“You’re from the North Pole..?”

“Yup.”

“And you took Santa’s sleigh and crash-landed in my alleyway, because…?”

“Well, technically I’m Santa, so it’s my sleigh but--”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. _You’re_ Santa?” Seth set down his beer.

“Technically.”

“ _You’re_ Santa? White beard, red bathrobe, bowl-full-of-jelly, that Santa?” Seth looked at him incredulously.

“Well, I don’t think my weight needs to be a factor in this…” Nick mumbled.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it, I just... _You’re_ Santa?” Seth said again squinting at him until Nick felt like a bug under a microscope.

“See, this is exactly what I was trying to tell my family! I’m not any good at being Santa, and I know I’d just let everyone down!” Nick said.

“It can’t be that bad,” Seth said.

“You saw how I landed! Besides, I never even wanted to be Santa! I could never hope to be as good of a Santa as my Dad was! And not only will I let everyone I have ever loved down, but I’ll ruin Christmas for the entire world!”

He had never said any of those things out loud. He simultaneously felt enlightened and nauseous to hear the words echo in his ears. He burrowed himself deeper into the blanket and held his hands like a teepee over his mouth, he couldn’t believe he’d actually said it. He felt tears threatening to prick at his eyes and his head kept a steady drumbeat in his head.

What struck Nick was that those eyes, which had looked at him suspiciously a moment ago, were flooded with worry and caring and, for a second, he was reminded of the eyes on the cover of the magazine.

“I’m sorry, that sounds tough, Nick,” Seth leaned forward in his chair and rested his chin in his hands, “So what do you want to do, then? I mean why did you come to Phoenix--of all places?”

Nick’s eyes lit up and he bounced forward in his seat like a little kid. He told Seth all about the magazines--but left out the his favorite magazine, he wanted that to stay between him and Anderson Cooper--and about Ellie’s idea for a vacation. And the way Seth leaned in even closer and listened to each word that left Nick’s mouth so intently, sent a shiver down Nick’s spine.

“Uh, so you’re taking a vacation in Phoenix? How come?” Seth asked, but that didn’t seem like the part of the story he had the most questions about.

“Yes!” Nick pulled the torn out magazine page from his coat beside him and handed it to Seth, “I wanted to find someplace where I could stretch and relax and just breathe, ya know? And then I saw this!”

“‘...try desert yoga…’” Seth read.

“Yeah, so I told the GPS to take me to ‘desert yoga’ in Phoenix, Ar-a-zana,” Nick beamed.

“ _Ar-i-z-ona_ ,” Seth said, not sure if Nick was serious.

“That’s what I said,” Nick replied.

“Okay...nevermind,” Seth turned back to the page in his hands, “Well, downstairs is my yoga studio, Desert Spirit Yoga, so--”

“Ohhh! Wait! So you know what yoga is? Can you teach me?!” Nick said. When Seth just looked at him puzzled, Nick’s face fell a little and he looked down at the ground and fiddled with his fingers, “But I mean if you don’t want to I totally understand…”

“No, it’s not that, I mean I can teach you yoga--”

“You will?” Nick’s eyes lit up again and his crooked grin made Seth completely forget his train of thought for a second.

“Yeah,” Seth started to grin himself, “But, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, Seth Meyers.”

“Uh,” getting called by his full name was definitely not something Seth was used to hearing, “W-What do you think...yoga is..?”

“Isn’t it that thing where you try to see how long you can yawn while bouncing on a pogo stick?”

Seth covered his mouth to keep from giggling yet again because Nick seemed so earnestly serious, “Well, Nick...that’s not exactly what it is, but I think you’ll definitely find it relaxing.”

“What is it then?”

“How about I make up the couch, we get some sleep, and I’ll show what yoga is in the studio tomorrow? Does that sound okay?”

“I am pretty tired,” Nick said.

Seth patted the taller man’s knee and went to grab some sheets and a pillow from the linen/coat closet.

“Can I help in anyway?” Nick said. He stood up and fidgeted some more, he hated feeling useless.

“Uh, sure,” Seth’s voice was muffled by coats, “Could you put the glasses by the sink and just throw those bike shorts on the bed? Thanks!”

Nick stood up slowly and grabbed his two glasses and Seth’s empty bottle, following instructions. As he passed the fridge, he noticed a smattering of pictures with Seth and a beautiful woman posing together. Seth looked like he was radiating happiness, but the woman’s smile didn’t quite seem to reach her eyes. For a reason that Nick’s brain could quite put into words, the sight of the two of them made his stomach drop. He decided that he’d ask more about her later.

“Oh!” Seth suddenly said as he stuffed the pillow in a fresh case, “Pajamas!”

“That’s okay, Seth, you’ve been so nice already and I can sleep in--”

“Don’t worry about it, you’re a little bit taller than me, but some of my looser clothes should work,” Seth began to rummage through his dresser drawers.

_He has tight clothes?_

“Th-Thank you, Seth.”

“No problem, buddy.” Seth handed him a dark t-shirt and flannel pants. He pointed to the bathroom in the corner that Nick hadn’t even noticed before. And Nick shuffled over.

When he emerged, Nick had to admit, he felt way more comfortable. The shirt was the kind of soft you get when it’s been in the wash every week for years. He still didn’t know who the person on his shirt was, though.

“Hey, Seth? Who’s David Bowie?”

“Oooh, I have a whole world of music to introduce you to,” Seth beamed.

“Jolly,” Nick smiled down at the floor.

“Right. Well, the couch is all made,” Seth said, patting the pillow.

Nick slid under the covers and made a little cocoon for himself, it wasn’t as cushy as his bed at home, but the pillow smelled like Seth which was strangely comforting.

“Alright then, Nick,” Seth hesitated before patting Nick’s shoulder and decided against it and instead hit the light switch.

Nick listened to the squeak of the mattress and rustle of sheets as Seth climbed into bed. In the darkness, the silence almost became a noise on it’s own. He knew he should be trying to go to sleep and Seth was probably asleep by now--Nick had been the reason Seth was up in the middle of the night--but he wanted to say something. Anything, really, Seth was definitely an annual nice-lister, but what could Nick possibly say to thank--

“Hey, Seth Meyers?”

“Yes, Nick?”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, buddy.”

_That’ll do for now._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seth introduces Nick to yoga and Nick learns what it means to get "hit on".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, life got in the way and I didn't finish the fic on time for Christmas :(( But stay tuned, because I am definitely not abandoning this bad boy. Thank you so much for reading!!!!!!!

Nick had been groggy when Seth had woken him up. He simply was not used to waking up before dark--unless it was Christmas morning, of course. When he looked up into Seth’s up-and-at-them face, Nick hadn’t even remembered who or where he was. Then it had all flooded back. The magazines, the sleigh, David Bowie, _Seth_. His brain had bombarded itself with second thoughts the minute he truly realized that he’d done it, he’d left. So foggy were his thoughts, as he’d put on the sweatpants that Seth had given him for “sunrise yoga”--whatever that was, that he hadn’t really gotten a good look at Seth. But, in the morning light that had begun to pour through the studio’s windows, Nick noticed everything.

Seth handed Nick a rolled up “mat” of foam from a pile in the corner. With a natural ease he demonstrated how to unroll the mat from its bindings and lay it out on the floor with the short end facing the window. 

“This is my favorite part of the day,” Seth said, an easy smile played across his face.

He wasn’t whispering, per se, but there was a calm reverence to his voice that told Nick that whatever this yoga thing was, it was sacred to Seth. “Just follow my lead, I’ll be going slow since the point of this is to gently welcome the day and center yourself. Does that sound alright, Nick?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Nick replied.

Nick copied as Seth stood at the back end of his mat and stretched his arms in different shapes over his head, each different position left Nick feeling like he’d just discovered a brand new muscle somewhere in his shoulders and it was magnificent. Then, Seth reached out in front of himself and bent down in a wide arc that made Seth’s body and the floor resemble a triangle. 

“This one is called ‘Downward Facing Dog’,” Seth said.

After figuring out just how far his feet and hands could be without falling over, Nick assumed the pose as well.

“Ya know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog in person.” 

“Wait, what really?”

“Yeah, dogs don’t really like the climate up there.”

“Well, that does make sense, I guess.”

“Besides, in all the pictures I’ve seen of dogs, I’ve never seen them do something like this.”

Seth snorted, but he didn’t want to seem like he was making fun of Nick so he schooled his face before saying, “So what would you call this pose then?”

“How about...downward facing reindeer?”

That time Seth did chuckle, “I like it, now I’ll never be able to do this pose again without thinking of that. It’ll confuse the hell--I mean heck out of my students.”

Nick’s cheeks began to flush.

“Alright, next we’re going to arch down into the ‘Cobra’ position,” Seth said.

Seth’s body swung back down to the mat, his chest pressed out between his arms, and his head tilted up toward the glass front doors. Nick saw the outline of veins in Seth’s olive forearms become more distinct and that slow, deep breaths he took each time his chest rose and fell. With the studio lights still off and the morning sun illuminating all of his features, Seth almost seemed to glow as brightly as a Christmas tree. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Seth saw Nick staring at him and winked, “Yo got this, buddy.”

Nick’s blush turned even darker.

Next, Seth stepped to the back of his mat and stood with perfect posture, then he let his shoulders roll forward and his back followed. He was bent at the waist and touched his toes with a level of ease that Nick could not fathom--the tips of Nick’s fingers only barely went past the middle of his shins. Seth looked over and saw how much Nick was straining to touch his toes too.

“Don’t worry about how far you reach, Nick,” he giggled and stood upright.

“But how come you can reach so much farther? Are my arms just really short? I mean I always thought they were normal, but--” Nick asked

Seth just smiled and shook his head, “That’s not how it works. I’ve just been doing stretches like that for so many years that my muscles have actually gotten longer. If you end up doing a lot of yoga too, you’ll end up being able to reach down to your toes too. Here, do it again.” 

Nick bent down at his waist again, with his legs straight and basically let his torso just flop down onto the front of himself. He had to admit, it actually felt really good. Like that feeling you get when you wake up in the morning and flex your legs out as far as they will reach. Like a release of pressure with a slight burn lacing the edges of your nerves.

“You don’t want to hurt yourself. You just want to make sure you feel a nice deep stretch,” Seth placed the tips of his fingers on Nick’s spine and ran them from his lower back all the down to his shoulder blades, “right along here.”

“Uh,” while it had been a relaxing sensation only moments ago, all Nick’s thoughts and blood seemed to be pooling under Seth’s hand. To holly with that relaxing feeling, Nick wanted more of the mind-numbing warmth that radiated out through his body. But just like that, Seth’s touch was gone.

“Do you feel it? Do you see what I mean?” Seth’s voice barely seemed different, maybe a little more high pitched than before.

_He probably didn’t feel anything. It’s probably just a yoga feeling that he’s used to by now._

“Um, yeah, I-I definitely felt something,” it was the only thing he could say without outright lying. Whatever he felt sure wasn’t relaxing, it was _so_ much better.

Seth took Nick through the rest of his sunrise yoga ritual, but Nick couldn’t focus on any of it. All he could think about was the imaginary line along his spine. He’d swear that it still felt like Seth’s hand was still there. 

“Uh, alright, Nick, the last thing we’re gonna do is sit criss-cross like this and, um, take a few more deep breaths.” Seth said, he seemed a little more squirmy than before.

_Maybe whatever that feeling was before was not usual, maybe I tensed up and he thought that I didn’t want him to touch me. I definitely don’t want him to think that I don’t appreciate him teaching me yoga. I’ll just have touch him back so that he knows, that, ya'know...no worries, it's all merry._

Seth showed Nick the best way to roll the mats back up and put a bungee cord around them. And then leaned against the front counter to take a sip of a water bottle from behind the desk and offered some to Nick who had leaned against the counter too.

“So how do you feel? Relaxed?” Seth grinned.

“Yeah, definitely, uh, my body feels a little sore in some places, but overall I feel just really...loose.” Nick said, taking a sip of the water bottle when Seth offered it.

“I’m so happy you liked it! That’s awesome, buddy.” Seth said.

“And, uh, I don’t remember what the name of the stretch was but the one where I could like feel the stretch right along here,” Nick reached his hand behind Seth’s back and copied Seth’s motion from earlier, running his fingers up the shorter man’s back to his shoulder blades, “whatever it was, oh my garland, it was neat.”

_Mission accomplished._

Seth looked up at Nick with wider eyes than usual and the tips of his ears turned pink. He opened his mouth and looked as though he were about to say something before closing his mouth once again. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s, uh, called the st-standing forward fold…”

“Well it was jolly.”

Nick took another sip of the water and handed it back to Seth--who looked like he was trying to work over some kind of complex math problem or something in his head. Nick stared at the floor, not quite sure what people did and said in Phoenix when there was a silence.

“Uh, well,” Seth’s voice sounded like it was traveling back down from somewhere far away, “so I have a class coming in about twenty minutes. And then another class right after that. They’re upper level classes and I don’t want you to pull a muscle or something, so I was thinking maybe you’d want to explore the neighborhood for a little bit, huh? You could come back here around eleven and we could go up to the apartment and have lunch. How does that sound?”

As much as he didn’t necessarily want to leave Seth, Nick knew that it would be even worse to suffocate Seth and overstay his welcome. Besides, it’d give him a chance to find out more about life in Seth’s world: Ar-a-zana. And he’d get to come back and be able to ask Seth about any questions he had.

“Sounds like a great plan, Seth Meyers.”

  
  
  


Seth had told him about a park a few blocks from the studio that had really cool sculptures. And it seemed like a great first step into an alien land. And as soon as Seth had realized that by ‘money’ Nick meant chocolate coins covered in gold foil, he gave Nick five dollars and told him to try the cherry shell ice cream cones that were sold from one of the vendors in the park a few blocks away. 

Nick had stepped out the door flip flops that he had also borrowed from Seth (they were a little shorter than he guessed they should be) but the feeling of the breeze and the sun hitting his toes was unreal. There was so much to see, and in every direction a new face or object caught his eye. He wandered down the path, noticing the people weren’t walking on the black, paved ground only the strips of tan, paved ground on either side. He couldn’t help himself, he stopped at almost every store window to see what was inside. Dusty colored paintings, guitars and drum sets for sale with ne _w_ _holiday prices that will really **jam** with your wallet_, and mannequins sporting shirts that were half the size of normal ones with the names of places like “California” or “New York”. Maybe he’d get to visit those places someday.

Since he wasn’t one-hundred percent sure what a “block” meant in Phoenix, Nick walked a few rounds past the same shops but no one seemed to notice. Nick didn’t mind one bit though, he felt like a spy who has snuck past enemy lines and blended in with the civilians. He felt... _dangerous_ , and it was a an electrifying feeling he didn’t even know he was capable of. Once he finally reached the art park that Seth was talking about, he felt like he had the lightest heart on the planet. And he could think of no better way to celebrate than Seth's idea: ice cream.

Finally, Nick passed ice cream vendor was actually handing bright red ice cream cones to two young girls who excitedly ran past Nick out the main road. This had to be the place. Nick stepped up to the stand and ordered the delicious looking treat and paid for it with the Phoenix money Seth had given him. One bite in and Nick instantly knew why Seth had recommended it. 

_Oh my garland!_

It was exquisite! The fruity taste of cherry and the smooth vanilla of the ice cream nearly made Nick’s mind explode. He finished the entire thing in a matter of two minutes flat, wishing he could go back for seconds, but instead rinsing his hands in a water spigot he had seen a mother washing a toddler’s hands off in earlier. Had everyone at the North Pole been keeping this tasty secret from him?! It dawned on him that as he relished in the heat and beauty of the day everyone he loved was an impossible distance from him. At the thought of home, Nick’s thoughts and worries quickly whipped up into a storm. Were they looking for him? Were they livid that he had skiipped out on them only two moths before Christmas? How bad were the consequences of his running away going to be? And what would he do if Seth got annoyed by him and wanted him to lea--

“Oof!”

Without even realizing anyone was there he’d accidentally bumped into the leg of a woman sitting on a bench, subsequently knocking the book she had been holding right to the ground.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Nick said, quickly grabbing up the book and handed it to her.

“Don’t worry about it,” she laughed. She seemed unremarkable to Nick, but she did have a kind smile.

“Sorry I just--”

“Had your head in the clouds?” she finished.

“Yeah, I suppose so.” Nick rubbed the back of his neck.

“No harm, no foul,” she said, “I’m Alyssa, by the way.”

“Nick. Nick Kringle.”

“No way! Your parents must’ve loved Christmas!”

_Oh jingle bells!_

“Huh, um yeah they did...I guess,” Nick said. It had to be getting close to eleven, he needed to find a clock somewhere.

“Well, Nick, I come here almost everyday and I’ve never seen you before. Are you new?”

“Yeah, I’m new in town...” Nick said, looking around, hoping maybe one of the older buildings had some kind of clock on the outside. He didn’t mean to be rude, but he also didn’t want to be late to see Seth. 

“Well welcome to the neighborhood! It’s really a lovely place,” then the woman did something odd: she bit her lip and fished out her cell phone, “You know, if you ever want a local tour, I could..maybe...give you my number and--”

“Nick!”

Walking up the pathway Seth, still in his tight “bike shorts”, normal shorts, and t-shirt, was waving to Nick. Nick beamed as Seth got closer, he couldn’t wait to tell him about how much he absolutely _adored_ the cherry shell cone.

“Nick! Where were you?” Seth started,“I got worried when you didn’t come back home--oh, hello.”

“Hi there.” the woman’s voice had a new string of tightness to it. They both looked to Nick to layout the situation.

“Oh, oh, sorry, Seth this is...Alyssa...?”

“Yes, Alyssa.” she nodded.

“And Alyssa, this is Seth,” Nick stuck his hands in his sweatpant pockets and felt uncomfortable for a reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on yet, “Sorry, Seth I guess I lost track of time. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

But Seth’s eyes were still looking the woman over, apparently still seeking more context.

“...So? Is this a friend of yours, Nick, or…?” while the words sounded mild enough to Nick there was a strange edge to them that he had not yet heard from the shorter man, and the way Seth lightly placed his hand on Nick’s upper arm not only sent goosebumps across his arms, but it also served to punctuate whatever weird tension seemed to hang above them...

“Um, no she was just asking for my number, in case--”

“Oh, no, no, no, I didn’t realize you two were--” she motioned between the two of them and swiftly got up, collecting her book and her purse.

“Oh,” was all Seth said.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you--I’m just an idiot--” she said as she scurried of the way Seth had come.

It was all over before Nick even had a chance to wrap his head around what everyone was talking about, let alone think of something to say. He looked over to Seth, whose hand had not moved from his arm throughout the whole encounter. Seth was watching her leave and the tips of his ears were pink once again. He also had something akin to a smile pulling at the edge of his lips.

“Come on, let’s head back.” Seth said, letting his hand fall away from Nick.

“Seth--”

“Well, she seemed...cute.”

“Cute? Wait, what? And what did she “not realize”? Why did she leave so quickly? Was it something I said?”

Seth arched an eyebrow at him, “Buddy, she was hitting on you.”

“What? She didn't even touch me-?”

“No, bud-Mot literally hitting you. I mean hitting you like trying to ask you out. Yeah, she wanted you phone number so she could call you and go on a date or something. You really didn’t notice?”

“She just said she wanted to give me a local tour when I told her I was new....wait, you mean like a _romantic_ date?”

Seth just just threw his head back and laughed, “So you had no idea?”

“No, why would I think she was interested in me? I literally ran into her! And why did she run away like a scared elf as soon as you got here?”

Smiling slightly, Seth stopped in the middle of the walk and scratched his head.

“Two things Nick, one, I don’t know how to tell you this in a non-weird way but, you’re a pretty handsome guy so what just happened with Alyssa might very well happen again. And two, Alyssa left so quickly because...she thought...the _we_ were already dating. And that, like, maybe I might see her as a threat or something...”

_Seth thinks I’m handsome. Objectively at least--AND WAIT, WHAT?_

Nick’s eyes opened to the size of ornaments. He didn’t say a word for a while but his mouth kept opening and closing on its own accord. 

“You okay, Nick?” Seth touched his upper arm again which seemed to be enough to jump-start Nick’s brain again.

“ _You and me?_ ”

“Well, yeah that’s what she thought...” at the utter surprise in Nick’s voice, Seth’s face fell a little and he dropped his arm back down to his side and resumed walking. 

Him and Seth? Dating? Nick had been friends with two guy elves who had dated but he never ever pictured himself with another human man. 

“I-I just didn’t, I don’t know, realize that there might be other...guys who would like me? There weren’t any guys--well, human guys--like that back home.”

Seth stopped so suddenly in his tracks that Nick actually ran into him, but Seth seemed unphased by it. He turned to the taller man with the same kind eyes that were a little blurry in his concussed memories of the night before.

“ _Nick_ ,“ Seth said and Nick’s stomach fluttered in the way that only the Anderson Cooper magazine had ever made it, “Of course there are gonna be guys that like you. Girls too. Like, I said, you may not realize it, but _you_ are a catch, Nick Kringle.”

“Really?” Nick said, he looked at the ground and fidgeted with his fingers to avoid showing Seth his big stupid grin.

“Of course!” Seth laughed

At that, Nick threw his arm over the smaller man’s shoulder.

“How about we go have lunch, and you can tell me what you thought about the cherry shell ice cream?”

“Oh my garland! It had everything…!”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seth introduces Nick to Tom Hanks and vodka.

Two weeks passed, with Seth and Nick falling into somewhat of a rhythm. Seth wasn’t sure if he should feel like his life had been intruded upon or not, but he found it didn’t really matter. It was, by no stretch of the imagination, ordinary circumstances and--if he was honest with himself--Seth loved having someone around the apartment again. His little studio apartment had felt twice as empty when he and his very serious girlfriend had broken up, but he had felt completely full again ever since Nick had crash-landed into his world.

Every morning he would wake Nick up from his place on the couch and lead them down to the studio for sunrise yoga. After that, since Seth didn’t like to eat anything in the mornings--it just felt like it sloshed around in his stomach during his morning classes--Nick would often go up to Seth’s apartment and have a bowl of cereal. Sometimes Seth asked Nick to go run and get some groceries or something before lunch, and he loved hearing about all of the seemingly ordinary things that Nick would see at the grocery store that blew his mind. Especially the self-checkout line. That had really thrown him for a loop at first. But by the third use, he bragged to Seth about the record time he could now purchase three boxes of Frosted Flakes in. Seth's cheek muscles would actually sometimes hurt from grinning so hard at Nick's stories. 

Then, after lunch and into the evening, Nick would join Seth’s lower level classes. While Seth loved Nick’s presence in the class--he learned surprisingly quickly--it was sometimes distracting. Not by any fault of Nick’s, Seth would sometimes just look up at his students with his eyes immediately happened to fall onto the mat in the back where Nick’s body seemed to be absorbing the light from the windows-- giving him an ethereal halo. Sometimes he’d get so thrown off by the simple strain of Nick's shoulders under _Seth's_ borrowed t-shirt that he’d have a few curious students look up at him, wondering why his sentence had trailed off. But Seth hardly cared, it was well worth it to have Nick grinning at him from the back.

The temporary nature of their setup had started to cause a few problems, though. Nick would sometimes groan and pop his joints during their morning stretches, and Seth was almost positive that the couch was slowly starting to affect Nick’s back. He went back and forth in his head every time he noticed this and could never quite figure out a way to fix the problem.

_ You could let him sleep in your bed with you. _

But that couldn’t really be an option, right? To share a bed was definitely crossing into some kind of new territory Seth wasn’t sure if Nick wanted. Fuck, Seth wasn’t even sure what he wanted. They were just one new friend temporarily crashing on a near-stranger’s couch. But if they started sharing a _bed..._ They’re brand new friendship would slide into some kind of relationship truly outside the box.

_ Outside of the closet you mean. _

It was a Saturday, which meant that the studio was closed for the next two days. No classes also meant an entire 48 hours to fill up without their regular schedule. Last weekend they had had errands to run, and when Nick wanted to see what a library was, they had returned home with half a dozen books that Nick spent the remainder of the weekend gobbling up. Seth hadn't hardly believed he could be so pleased by simply watching Nick's unguarded face react to every word he read. They had had to make another trip to the library Thursday when Nick had powered through all the books already. And though Seth was fiercely anti-censorship, had steered Nick away from a Stephen King display. Baby steps. Though he was slightly curious if Nick's head might actually explode from that level of novel.

But this was a new weekend, and Nick had found himself burnt out on reading after about a full book a day for the five days straight. Seth figured it might be a day or two before he picked up the next one in the stack. In the early hours of the morning, at least an hour before it was time for sunrise, Seth laid in bed and stared at the popcorn ceiling. Part of Seth’s mind itched at the idea of having only Nick to focus all his attention on. It made his stomach flip, and he wasn’t sure if it was nerves...or something else. Whatever the feeling, Seth was more awake than the time he’d tried Adderall in college--

“Seth? Are you awake?” Seth had never heard Nick whisper but it was a satisfying sound, like the  _ pop  _ a chip bag makes when it’s freshly opened.

“Yeah, buddy, I’m up,” Seth said.

“Oh, you were muttering so I wasn’t sure.” 

Even whispering, Seth could hear the smile in the taller man’s voice.

“Huh, yeah, my ex-girlfriend used to kick me when I was muttering too loud for her to go to sleep,” Seth felt a little tightening in his chest.

“Oh,” the smile was gone.

“I hope I didn’t wake you up,” Seth said.

“No, no, no, I was already awake,” Nick said, “Hey...can I ask you a personal question?”

Seth already had a pretty good idea what the question was going to be, “Sure, Nick.”

“And you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, of course, but...why did you guys break up?” he asked, his tone nothing but genuine.

“Well, it’s kind of hard to explain. Actually, no it’s not. That’s something people always say, but I know exactly why we broke up,” Seth cleared his throat, “Um, I went through some...internal reflection and realized something new about myself. When I figured out this new thing I was thrilled, because I finally had the words to explain why I am the way I am, ya’know. I had gotten through a lot of stuff that really messed with my head, but at the end of it I felt like a  _ whole person _ for once. But my girlfriend was...definitely  _ not  _ thrilled. She left shortly after.”

Seth wasn’t quite sure if Nick would ask what that ‘something new’ was but he was prepared to tell him if he asked. But he didn’t expect what Nick actually said. Well, _did_.

Nick slowly rose from his place on the couch and walked over to Seth’s bed. His eyes were soft with an edge of anger in them--unless Seth was just imagining things. Seth felt his own eyes widen and sat up, propped up by his hands, poised for whatever it was that Nick was about to do.

_ Did he figure it out? _

Nick simply sat down on the edge by Seth’s blanketed legs and set a sleep-warm hand on Seth’s ankle. This felt like an incredibly more intimate position, even though Nick had literally only moved a few feet closer.

“I’m... _ really _ sorry to hear that, Seth.” there was a hitch in the taller man’s voice that started to form a lump in Seth’s throat, “That’s  _bullshit_ .”

Maybe it was the sudden tears pushing against the backs of his eyes--threatening to spill down, maybe it was the way his body felt like it was shaking all over, or maybe it was the fact that the most innocent, marshmallow man in the world had just said ‘bullshit’. Whatever the reason, Seth started giggling and couldn’t stop. Seth could feel the tears that had started to fall, though he tried his best to wipe them away before Nick could see. Luckily, Nick seemed just as surprised by his language and joined in the giggling. And without breaking his laughter, Nick grabbed the Kleenex from the bottom of the nightstand and set them by Seth.

“Wanna hear something weird?” Nick said.

“Weirder than being Santa Claus? Lay it on me, my man.”

“Don’t be a such puffin,” Nick chuckled, “No, I-I think I woke up so early because I’m super excited about the two of us getting to hang out today.”

“  _ Nick  _ “Seth couldn’t have kept the giddiness out of his voice for anything, “Well, I guess there’s no point staying in bed if we’re both wide awake. Let’s get some breakfast and plan out our day.” 

  
  


They decided to skip sunrise yoga and opted to stay in their pajamas the rest of the morning. Plus, the sun had been up for a good half hour by that point. 

Nick hopped up onto the counter, and sat watching Seth rummage through the cupboards.

“What do you feel like? We got cereal, but we always have that...Ooh! How about waffles? Yeah, I think I got the waffle maker around here somewhere. I swear, Nick, my old college roommate got me a waffle maker when I bought this place because he thought that a waffle maker was an absolutely necessary item for survival,” Nick hadn’t thought about that in ages. He should call the guy sometime, see what he was doing these days.

“But...it  _ is  _ necessary,” Nick deadpanned.

“W-Wha…I mean...”

_ He’s not serious, right? _

Then Nick’s straight face broke into a giant grin, and Seth’s shoulders relaxed.

“I think that’s the first joke I’ve heard you make, I mean you seem to laugh when I make a joke, but that was a solid joke, buddy,” Seth grinned.

“I’ve made jokes before, haven’t I?”

“Not that you’ve told me. Now get your ass down here and help me,” Seth said, trying to grab Nick off the counter. He noticed how Nick didn’t even seem to flinch at the expletive, maybe it was the episodes of  _ The Office _ that they had just started watching over the last week. He also noticed that trying to grab Nick off the counter had immediately become Seth scooping Nick up and Nick wrapping around Seth’s shoulders for balance. It was way more intimate than Seth had intended, his senses flooded with warmth and the smell of pine needles and cinnamon that Nick seemed to radiate. The hug--if you could even call it that--was over in a split second, but left Seth’s body on overload and he kind of stumbled backward. Nick caught his arm and gave it a little squeeze.

_ Now what in the _ hell  _ did that mean?! _

“I-I used to tell Ellie jokes all the time back home--” Nick began, getting down a measuring cup and filling it with water.

“Wait, who’s Ellie?” Seth forced his eyes onto the powder mix as he poured in the water.

“I haven’t told you about Ellie?”

“Nope. Who is she?” Seth said gesturing for Nick to take over mixing.

“My sister, Noelle.”

“Your sister?” Seth almost banged his head as he dug around in a lower cupboard for the waffle maker, “You never told me you had a sister! That’s awesome, is she anything like you?” 

“Huh, yeah, in a lot of ways,” Nick sighed, “but she’s definitely better than me at a lot of things. Especially when it comes to spreading Christmas cheer. Don’t get me wrong, I  _ love  _ Christmas. And I love my sister, she’s one of my favorite people in the world. But she’s always been better at decorating, and working with the elves and reindeer, ice skating, but especially with just knowing how to make the people around her happy. Which, oh my garland, I am horrible at,” Nick scoffed.

Seth had slowly drawn himself out of the cupboard with the waffle maker in hand. He set it on the counter, noticing how tight Nick’s shoulders looked even from afar.

“Well…” Seth wasn’t quite what he could say to be helpful. It was still weird to hear Nick talk about the North Pole as a  _ real  _ place that  _ really _ exists. Nick’s problems sometimes sounded like a Holiday Family Turmoil edition of Mad Libs.

“Nevermind, Seth. Sorry about that, I didn’t mean to slip into a rant. Did you find the waffle maker, yet? The batter is almost ready.”

“Nick, man,” Seth put his hand on Nick’s to stop his nervous whisking, “You don’t have to be sorry. Sometimes it really helps to just vent, ya’know? And if I’m allowed to vent about all my girlfriend-baggage-shit, then you get to vent about this. Take it from a guy who learned that waaay too fu--freakin’ late in life. Okay.”

Nick stared at their overlapping hands and slowly nodded, “Thanks.”

“No prob, buddy,” Seth released Nick’s hands, “and yes, I did find the waffle maker.”

  
  
  


After downing four waffles, drowned in syrup, Seth almost wanted to crawl back into bed and hibernate like a bear until Christmas. Nick had eaten half as many and was definitely functioning at a higher level than Seth, so he nixed the idea of a nap and instead suggested a movie marathon.

_ And if I fall asleep--sue me. _

Nick wasn’t quite sure what a running competition had to do with movies until Seth explained it to him. Seth got himself another cup of decaf and took Nick’s cup to make the man another hot cocoa. 

“So what movies are we watching?” Nick said, perched on the countertop once again. 

“You are in for a good time, buddy,” Seth smirked, “I am going to play you some works of _ art _ to give you just a taste of my childhood. And we will start off with the Disney classic, starring Tom Hanks:  _ Turner and Hooch _ . Mmmm. I think you’re gonna love it.”

“Who’s Tom Hanks?”

“You are never say those three words in that order again,” Seth said, grabbing Nick’s mug out of the microwave, “here you go.”

Nick grinned.

The two made their way over to the couch. Seth sat down, but set his coffee down and got up again when he realized that he hadn’t actually put the disc into his Playstation/DVD player.

“Prepare to fall in love with T. Hanks,” Seth said over his shoulder.

When Seth turned around, however, Nick was sitting in a place he never had. Usually, Seth would sit on the couch and Nick would curl up in the chair--Seth would never admit how _delicate_ Nick looked balled up in the chair, hunched around one of his books--when they watched TV, or vice versa. But there was Nick, half of a blanket slung over his shoulders, the other half draped over the back of the couch--waiting for Seth, and his hot cocoa mug on a coaster next to Seth’s decaf. Slower than usual, Seth shuffled over and settled into the seat next to Nick--who immediately brought the blanket down onto Seth’s shoulders. 

_ This will be interesting. _

  
  
  


Even as the credits rolled, Nick was still sniffling and crying into a Kleenex that Seth had grabbed. 

“Why did Hooch have to die?!”

“They got the puppies in the end, though!” Seth giggled.

Throughout the course of the movie, Nick and Seth had slowly creeped into the other’s space. First with their arms brushing each other, then their legs overlapped when Nick decided to spread out. By the time Tom Hanks was trying to find the bad guy in the warehouse showdown, Seth had decided on a bold move and had rested his head on Nick’s shoulder.

Seth looked at the clock on the wall behind them.

“Oh my God, it’s almost 1:00 already. Where did the morning go?”

Nick sniffled, “What movie’s next? And no more dead animals, Seth Meyers!”

Seth held up his hands in mock surrender, “No more dead animals, promise. Next is yet another classic:  _ Ferris Bueller’s Day Off _ , and you will experience the magic of John Hughes. But first, what did you think of Tom Hanks?!

“He’s definitely on the Nice List,” Nick sniffled.

“I know, right! Do you want any lunch?”

They took their bathroom breaks and opted to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches since they weren’t very hungry still.

  
  
  


_ Ferris Bueller’s Day Off _ seemed to be less traumatic for Nick, considering that at some point the Kleenex box had gotten kicked under the coffee table. In fact, he seemed to be transfixed on the TV screen even after the end credit scene.

“Well,” Seth waved his hand in front of Nick’s face, “what did you think?”

“Was what Cameron did naughty or nice?”

“What?”

“Destroying his dad’s car like that, does that make Cameron a naughty or nice person?” 

There was an urgency in Nick’s voice that Seth had no idea from where it was coming. 

“Well...I guess it depends on how you look at it--”

“That’s not how it works, Seth! It’s got to be one or the other! Which is it?!” Nick hissed.

Not only was Nick still staring at the screen, he was starting to visibly shake.

“Are you alright, Nick? What’s wrong?”

“He pushed, albeit accidentally, his father’s prized car out of the window. But his father loved the car more than his son, so it was actually a good thing that the car got destroyed but-but....” Nick had started to mumble and shake even worse.

This was starting to scare Seth now. He lightly set his hands on Nick’s forearms, and noticed that the shaking slowed down a little.

“Nick, buddy, can you please take a deep breath for me? Then we can figure out what’s going on okay?”

Nick ripped his body away from Seth’s and began pacing.

“There’s two options, Nick! Two! Someone is either naughty or nice! There is no other “depending on how you look at it”! My whole life, there was no gray! You’re either naughty or nice! What Cameron did was both! How?!” 

Slowly Seth rose from his seat and Nick’s shoulders started to slump, like he couldn’t find any human way to keep his muscles that tense. Ever so lightly, he reached out and took Nick’s forearm once again. When Nick didn’t pull away, Seth took it as a sign to continue.

“Buddy, some stuff can’t be figured out in one day. Sometimes things take time to soak in or you need to learn a lesson over and over again until it, ya’know, clicks. But now you’re talking in circles and not getting anywhere new. So, how about this: we’re going to take one more deep breath together,” Nick followed Seth’s lead and matched Seth’s deep breath, “Good. Let’s put this conversation on the shelf for a little while and come back to this after you’ve let it sit and process? I promise that you will eventually figure this out, but just not right now. Sound okay?”

Nick nodded. And before Seth even realized what was happening, the taller man had grabbed Seth up into hug. Nick’s breath was ragged and sent chills down Seth’s neck when it danced across his skin. Seth felt awful, he hadn’t meant to rock Nick’s entire belief system, he had just wanted to introduce him to the classics. He hugged Nick back in equal measure, finally pulling away when he figured out the best way to forget existential questions.

“Have you ever tried a screwdriver with Sprite?”

  
  


Nick had enjoyed his first sip of the screwdriver, but coughed at the vodka aftertaste. Seth just laughed and patted Nick’s back until the coughing was over.

“Trust me, the more sips you take, the easier it’ll go down.”

They popped a bag of popcorn for their final movie--which Seth had to swear on his yoga studio was not going to make Nick cry yet again. 

“Don’t worry, you’re going to love _Clueless_!”

And did he ever, only twenty minutes in and Nick was starting to give scene by scene commentary as the screwdriver loosened up his inhibitions. If he hadn’t already seen the movie more times than he could count, Seth might’ve tried to hush Nick, but he had never seen this side of Nick and it incredible. Halfway into the movie, Seth had found out that not only did Nick have a five-year-old’s tolerance for alcohol, but he was fucking  _ funny _ when he was drunk. And he had a bitchy streak buried deep inside him, which was only the second most interesting thing Seth had learned about the giggling, taller man in the last week. But _the_ number one most shocking thing Seth learned as soon as the first scene with Paul Rudd started to play on the screen. Nick had been sprawled out on the couch with his legs resting on Seth’s lap, but had grabbed Seth’s arm and sat immediately upright, whisper-yelling to Seth.

“Who is  _ that _ ?” 

“You mean Josh? He’s played by Paul Rudd,” Seth was a little tipsy, having finished off his screwdriver and working on Nick’s since it had become clear that Nick had reached his max. But he was definitely doing better than Nick, “Why? What about him?”

“‘What about _Paul Rudd_?!” Nick just about  _ screamed _ , “Well, I’d let  _ that man _ stuff his candy cane in my mouth any day!” 

“Jesus Christ, Nick!” Seth almost choked on his last sip of the screwdriver, coughing the vodka out of his lungs, “How”-- _ cough _ \--the fuck do you even”-- _ cough _ \--”know what... _ that _ is?!”

Nick just laughed at Seth’s pain until he couldn’t breathe too.

“It was written on a bathroom stall in the park!” Nick squirmed in his seat, still laughing uncontrollably.

Once he had gotten his breath back, Seth Meyers laughed harder than he ever had in his life--as well as blushed harder than he ever had. Just the thought of Paul Rudd and Nick--good God, he was never going to sleep again.

“I’m not wrong though, am I?! That was one present  _ I would just tear into _ ,” Nick stretched each word making the words almost as tight as the muscles in Seth's thighs.

“Oh my God, Nick,” Seth could actually feel the sweat pouring down his back. The words that dripped out of Nick’s mouth seemed both wrong and right on so many different and conflicting levels, “I think it’s time to call it a night.”

_ I don’t know if I can handle even one more dirty picture coming out of his mouth if I ever want to think about anything other than Nick and Paul Rudd gettin’ it on. _

“But Sethhhhhhh, I’m not tired!”

“I promise you, buddy, as soon as your head hits the pillow, you’ll be out like a light.”

“Like a Christmassss tree light.”

“Exactly. Now come on,” Nick took Seth’s offered hands eagerly, pulling himself up from the couch--albeit wobbling heavily--and into Seth’s arms.

The two rocked back and forth as Seth tried to have enough balance for both of them. It must’ve reminded Nick of dancing, because he started to sing “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa” and wriggling his hips in, what Seth assumed, was a dance move. Rather than try to fight it, Seth did his best to shimmy them over to the bed until he, more or less, dropped Nick’s body into his bed--a hangover and a stiff neck was too much to ask of a first-time drinker, Seth thought. Nick’s squirming got progressively more calm as the blankets and pillow seemed to envelop him. Seth scooped Nick’s legs up onto the bed and pulled the covers over the taller man’s body.

When Seth turned around he realized that they’d taken all of the bedding off of the couch for their movie marathon. If he wanted to sleep on the couch, he was going to have to make it up again.

_ There’s a perfectly comfy spot next to Nick. _

He didn’t really have the energy or sobriety to fight with himself much on the issue. Instead, Seth shuffled over to the light switches and flipped them off, feeling his way to the other side of the bed--only stubbing his toe once.

“Uhhhh,” Seth groaned as soon as his body relaxed into the cloud-esque mattress.

He pulled the blankets over himself as well and turned to stare at Nick who was dead asleep. In the moonlight, the flutter on Nick’s eyelashes was almost ethereal. The softness in Nick’s face almost took away his breath away. 

Not even realizing he’d brought his hand up from under the covers. He stroked a piece of Nick’s hair off of his forehead, drawing the tips of his fingers down the beautiful man’s jawline. Was the universe smiling down on Seth? How could a person like this have walked into his life? Someone that shook up his world just when he needed it and in just the right way? Someone that Seth loved as much--

_ “Loved”?  _

_ I’m falling in  _ love _ with Nick. _

_ I’m fucking falling in love with Santa Claus, aren’t I? _

_ Jesus Christ, why do I _ ever  _ drink vodka? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Thank you so much for reading!!!! I'd love to hear you thoughts in the comments! My lord I love these two <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys continue their weekend with a trip to the pool.

The morning sunlight was what woke Nick from his deep sleep. Somehow, individual sunbeams burned the backs of his eyes, which made his head throb. 

_I guess we’re not doing sunrise yoga today either._

All Nick wanted was to burrow down deeper into the covers and sleep for another few hours, but he wasn’t sure if the drum beat in his head or the dryness of his mouth would let him. He felt comfortable though, like a weighted blanket was draped over him, acting as his own personal heater. Then the blanket moved.

Nick’s eyes flew open, a shot of pain zapping his eyes. He looked down and saw Seth’s arm was wrapped around Nick’s torso, with the smaller man’s palm resting so gently on his stomach. The rest of Seth’s body was flush with Nick’s back, almost protectively curved around him. Nick could feel that Seth was still breathing in long, deep intervals and hadn’t seemed to wake up at Nick’s movements. 

_Why the holly am I in Seth’s bed?_

He only vaguely remembered the night before, but he had a small flash of blankets being pulled over him, but that was about it after they had started watching Clueless. He’d have to ask Seth why he doesn’t remember anything, and why he felt like he has the flu. But Seth was sleeping...right beside him. The question was, what to do now? Nick could quietly get up, and forget it about it (Seth was probably used to cuddling in bed since the last person to be in Nick’s place was Seth’s ex-girlfriend). That would be the best choice, the one that Seth would want...but, if Nick just happened to shut his eyes and fall back asleep he couldn’t be blamed for not getting up.

Nick shut his eyes against the harsh sunlight and focused on taking deep breaths, like Seth was doing right beside him. Pretty soon, Nick had synchronized their breathes. It was the closest he had ever felt to someone in his entire life, like they shared the same heartbeat, the same point in space and time. With every puff of air Nick felt on the back of his neck, the butterflies in his stomach would multiply. Nick felt sleep tug at the corners of his brain like water lapping at the shore--

Seth’s breath hitched, and Nick could feel the fingers on his stomach twitch. Then the shorter man’s entire body stiffened against him. Nick kept his eyes closed and kept his breathing in sleepy mode. He wasn’t quite sure why he wanted to keep pretending he was asleep, but a tiny part of him thought that--just maybe--Seth might try to go back to sleep, too. But, slowly, Seth pulled away his arm from Nick’s body, leaving behind a stripe of coldness. Nick’s heart sank--more so than he had expected it to. Seth’s legs and chest started to peel away from Nick, one of his feet thumping onto the ground. Nick felt a coldness that seemed to radiate out from where Seth’s body had been curled.

But before Seth’s weight entirely lifted off the mattress, Nick felt the light touch of Seth’s fingers as they tried to smooth down the cowlick on the crown of his head. 

“Oh, Nick,” Seth muttered--most definitely not with the intention of Nick actually hearing him, “what am I gonna do…” 

Then, he was gone. Nick fell back asleep, still with no idea what _that_ was.

  
  


The second time Nick woke up, Seth was seated on the edge of the bed next to him with a glass of water and two small capsules in his hands.

“Morning, buddy,” Nick winced at Seth’s chipper voice, “How’d you sleep?”

“Other than the cymbals crashing in my head, I actually slept harder than I think I ever have in my life. What happened to me last night?”

“First, here’s some Tylenol for your headache, so that can get going in your system,” Seth said, “Have you taken pills before?”

It seemed like a silly question to Nick, of course he’d taken pills before! He’d certainly had headaches before, but since so much of what Seth saw as normal was brand new to Nick, the question was a valid one.

Nick nodded, and propped himself up, downed the pills and the glass of water before Seth continued.

“So, apparently you have the alcohol tolerance of a kitten, but the mouth of a sailor when you drink,” Seth looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh, “and, I guess, less than _one_ screwdriver was somehow enough to cause the hangover you have right now.”

Nick felt all of the blood drain from his face. He had absolutely no memory of the night before. Not one clue what in the world as to what Seth was talking about. _Oh fig!_

“Wh-What did I say...exactly?” Nick wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know.

“Do you remember anything about the last movie we watched?” Seth reached for a mug on the bedside table that Nick hadn’t noticed and nudged it into Nick’s still-sleep-warm hand. It was hot cocoa. Seth was the best.

“Um, a little bit, there was a blonde girl, and her friend, and there was…” _one of the most breathtaking people I’ve ever seen_ “s-some guy with dark hair. Maybe? I, uh, don’t really remember.”

“Some guy?” Seth’s eyebrows almost went up to his hairline, “You said, and I quote, ‘I’d let him stuff his candy cane in my mouth any day,’. Remember that at all?”

Nick nearly choked on his hot cocoa.

Seth didn’t even try to hold back his laughter.

“What?! No I didn’t!”

“Oh, buddy, you _a b s o l u t e l y_ did.”

“I’m so sorry, Seth! I truly didn’t mean to say any of that, and I totally understand if it weirded you out--”

“Oh, Nick,” Nick had a flash of Seth muttering those words and smoothing his hair, it sent a chill up his spine, “It’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t worry about! It was the fucking funniest thing I’ve ever heard! I don’t know why I didn’t think to get you drunk sooner.”

Nick still hung his head, it felt like he’d admitted something with those words. There were questions he didn’t know the answers to that were probably spinning around in Seth’s mind right that instant. Nick felt like he’d peeled back a layer of his skin with those words, and it left him feeling even more exposed than when Seth had drawn away from him.

“Still, I promise I didn’t...mean to say something like that. That was something I should’ve kept to myself.”

Seth’s smile faltered. He reached out his hand and placed it on Nick’s knee, Nick revelled in the sensation.

“Nick, I promise I didn’t get uncomfortable or ‘weirded out’ by that at all,” Seth was smoothing circles over the curve of his knee, “When people drink, they say a lot of crazy stuff. It happens. I promise, I genuinely just found it funny. Besides….it _was_ Paul Rudd, so you’re not wrong.”

Seth winked at Nick quick, before rising from the bed and walking toward the kitchen, letting his words simmer in the air.

_Was that a blush?_

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely, buddy,” Seth’s voice called, “Oooh, by the way I thought of something _awesome_ that we could do today that you can’t do up in the frozen tundra. We should go to the pool!”

Seth brought out a bowl of cereal for each of them and sat criss-cross next to Nick.

“What? Like the park with the sculptures?”

“Have you never been to a pool?!” Seth balked.

“Apparently not.”

“Oh ho, okay, yeah we’re going to the pool today. It’s been decided. You’re gonna love it, Nick! We can go swimming or just sit in the sun, and the one here has these water things shooting up from the ground!”

“It does sound kind of exciting,” the giddiness in Seth’s voice was contagious, “how many times have you been to Pool.”  
“ _A_ pool, Nick. There’s more than one pool in the world. But the one we’re gonna go to I used to visit a ton when I was a kid, but I probably haven’t been there in ten years. I’ve driven past it a few times, so I know it’s still open, though.”

“But, wait, I’m confused. Is it like a bathtub...or what?”

“I mean, kind of. Yeah, actually that’s good, it’s like a giant bath tub without bubbles and that you swim in with a bunch of strangers.”

Nick’s eyes popped, scandalized.

“ _Is everyone else naked too?_ ” he near whispered.

Seth gulped, pushing the image of a bare naked Nick sprawled out in a bathtub into a far off corner of his mind.

“W-What? No, no, no, buddy. No one’s naked. At least they’re not supposed to be.”

“Wait. But aren’t my clothes gonna get all wet, then?”

“No, you have to wear a swimsuit. I’m sure I have some trunks you can borrow. Come here.” 

Seth set his cereal down and motioned for Nick to follow. Nick stood up but continued to shovel bites into his mouth. Seth opened one side of the folding closet doors across the room and started digging through drawers of clothing.

“Do I just wear them like regular clothes?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Seth’s voice was muffled, “Normal, except you don’t wear underwear.”

“Oh, um. Okay,” Nick said, “So they’re swim pants?”

“Close, swim shorts. Hey, can you open the other side and look down in the corner there,” Seth was still looking through a pile of what appeared to be athletic shorts, “I can’t see them.”

Begrudgingly, Nick set down his cereal and set about pawing through a stack of light and pastel clothes. The stack, of course, toppled almost immediately and the bright green graphic of one shirt caught Nick’s eye. He unfolded the thing and realized it was a little _too_ colorful, with weird lettering like puffs of paint had drawn it’s phrase, and designs of rainbows flying out of pots of gold coins were scattered. Along with a bigger design of a weird four-leafed plant.

“Hey Seth, what’s this shirt mean,” Nick held it over his torso, Seth had looked up and a small smirk was playing on his face,“‘Kiss me I’m Irish’? What does being Irish--”

Whatever words Nick had been planning to say got scrambled into oblivion when Seth leaned over and gave he a quick kiss on his cheek. Seth had pulled away grinning, and giggling a little at whatever wide-eyed expression Nick knew was plastered to his face.

 **_Clearly_ ** _, I’ve missed something here._

“Wha..?

“Haven’t you ever heard someone say that? Like on St. Patrick’s Day?

“I-Is that a holiday, or something…?”

“Are you kidding me? It’s, like, a really big holiday, Nick. And when you where a Kiss Me I’m Irish’ shirt or pin or something, people might kiss you. It’s kind of like a running joke.”

“Oh. Like kissing under the mistletoe?”

“Exactly! But with more sloppy, drunken kissing.”

_Was that why Seth has this shirt in the first place? For ‘sloppy, drunken kissing’ purposes?_

“Uh, um,” Nick tried to shake those images out of his head, “The only holiday we celebrate is Christmas, it’s the jolliest holiday of the year. What’s St. Patrick’s Day?” the blush still hadn’t left his cheeks.

“Huh,” Seth said, “Well, actually it’s just an excuse to get drunk and where stuff like that t-shirt. And to dump green food coloring into the Chicago River. I guess, you really haven’t missed much.”

Seth went back to rummaging. Nick could still feel the spot Seth’s lips had touched burn. He smirked.

“Hey Seth,” Nick scooched a little closer when the shorter man looked up, “What does the shirt say? I don’t think I heard you…”

“What?” Seth squinted.

“I forget what the shirt says again. Can you tell me what it says?”

“Wha-why? It just says ‘Kiss me I’m Irish--’”

“If you insist,” Nick said, and dove in to plant a slightly longer kiss on Seth’s cheek.

Seth let out the softest squeak, and he didn’t have the forethought to even try to rein in his smile. Now, Nick’s lips burned instead. Seth’s eyes were wide with a darkness 

Suddenly Seth was leaning in and Nick’s brain went to code red. His lips slightly parted in a way he had no control over whatsoever--

But Seth brushed past him--absolutely slower than was necessary, thought--and grabbed a pair of trunks.

“Found ‘em,” he winked, throwing Nick the trunks to try on before getting up again.

_Again, with the winking, Seth Meyers._

  
  
  


Whatever Nick was expecting, this was not it. When he had pictured a park of water he had thought of something more calming and with less...screaming. Everywhere around him people in half--or less--of the amount of clothing he was used to seeing meandered around, splashing in a giant concrete tub of water. As he looked up at the tiny red slide at--what Seth had called--the “shallow end”, a kid in goggles, and swim trunks like his and Seth’s, was whooping as his body was _plopped_ out into the pool. 

“Here,” Seth nudged a smooth bottle into Nick’s hand, drawing his attention back, “You gotta put this stuff on…”

But that was about all that Nick actually processed before a very different train of thought entered his brain. While Nick had been looking away Seth had taken off his shirt and now simply stood glowing in the sunshine. Why he had taken off his shirt, Nick really hadn’t a clue, but it struck him that a small part of him didn’t ever want Seth to put his shirt back on. He could see **everything**. Every muscle, every freckle, every inch of the man from his sharp defined collar bone on down to a thin trail of hair leading up from his swim trunks. Nick gulped. He’d only ever seen flashes of this part of Seth, like when he’d lift up his shirt a little to put on deodorant or when he was doing yoga and stretched to one side with his shirt riding up a little. Those little moments had always sent Nick’s stomach into somersaults, but this...this was a whole other level of thrilling.

Seth’s hands were covered in a bright white liquid that he was rubbing down his arms, chest, stomach, and--

_Garland, how low are his hands going to go…?_

“Nick? Buddy, what are you staring at?”

Nick was suddenly very aware that his mouth was slightly open and he’d been unabashedly looking the short man over.

“Wha-? Oh, um--what’s this?” Nick held up the bottle Seth had handed him.

“Really? Well, it’s sunscreen. It protects your skin from getting burnt by the sun. Here,” Seth took the bottle out of Nick’s hand, “hold out your hand.”

Nick did as told and Seth plopped a decent amount into Nick’s palm.

“And I…?” It was still painfully difficult to focus on anything that wasn’t _Seth_.

“Rub it on your skin. Like this,” Seth resumed rubbing the last of his sunscreen along his cheeks and forehead.

“So, like this…?”

Nick brought his palm to his arms and rubbing the liquid in broad strokes. 

“Yup, you got it,” Nick could tell he was trying not to laugh at him, “But you’ve got to take your shirt off so you can get the rest of you all sunscreen-ed up.”

“M-My shirt? Too?”

“Mmhm,” Seth nodded.

Nick finished rubbing the sunscreen over his arms so it wouldn’t get it all over his t-shirt. Well, technically it was Seth’s. He hadn’t felt self-conscious in Seth’s presence for almost the entire time he’d known him. It had become obvious right away that even if Seth laughed at Nick’s ignorance, he never judged Nick for it. In fact, Nick had started to enjoy making Seth laugh--even if it was at his expense. It was especially endearing when Seth tried to hold in the laugh, it just egged Nick on to do more of whatever silly thing he was doing. But in this case, he felt like he might hide in the changing stalls forever if Seth laughed at Nick’s body when he took his shirt off. 

Slowly, he pulled the fabric over his head and immediately sized up Seth’s reaction. To his relief, Seth certainly wasn’t laughing. In fact, Seth wasn’t looking at him at all. He almost seemed like he was looking everywhere _but_ at Nick. Nick’s stomach dropped. Couldn’t Seth even look at him? Did he look _that_ weird shirtless?

“Yup, there ya go. Now take more sunscreen and get th-that all over.” Seth still had his eyes fixed somewhere over Nick’s head, jaw oddly clenched.

“Oh, okay.”

Nick felt like a stone had sunk to the bottom of his stomach. Of course Seth was weirded out by seeing him without a shirt. He wasn’t as smooth and muscle-y as Seth, and he certainly didn’t have Seth’s olive skin which was such a warm color in the sunshine. Nick was the pale white you get from wearing at least three layers of clothing over every body part your entire life.

After he had finished coating himself up like greasing the axle of a toy car, he crossed his hands over his chest.

“That good enough?”

Seth looked back down at the taller man’s face and smiled, putting a little more sunscreen on his fingertips.

“Almost. You forgot to get your face. Come here,” Nick’s now flushed face angled down a little, “Now, you gotta be careful ‘cause this stuff stings pretty bad if you get it in your eyes, okay?”

With a gentleness that honestly surprised Nick, Seth began to spread the peppermint-candy-sized dot of the liquid across his face. He traced over Nick’s nose and cheeks, lightly sliding individual hands over Nick’s neck and ears to cover them up as well. Nick didn’t even have words to describe what this did to his already tangled-up thought. Let alone his body. But the part that made Nick hold his breath without even realizing it, was that Seth’s hands and eyes seemed to be taking in every square inch of Nick’s features. If it had been anyone else, Nick might’ve been deeply unsettled by that much attention directed at him...but this was not just anyone else--and it _thrilled_ him.

Suddenly a giant burst of water rose up from the pool beside them, and broke the moment. Nick nearly jumped out of his skin, grabbing Seth’s arm without meaning to.

_What in the holly is this place?_

“Seth...?!”

Seth chuckled, “Relax, buddy, someone just cannonballed into the water.”

“‘Cannonballed’?”Nick gripped tighter.

“Hey how about we just sit on the edge over here and dip our feet in, huh?” Seth pointed to a relatively uninhabited part of the pool that was a little closer to the “shallow end”. Nick nodded, and let go of Seth.

Nick watched as Seth ever so carelessly plopped down onto the edge of the pool and let his feet swing in the turquoise water. Seth smiled up at the taller man and patted the ground beside him.

“Your turn, buddy.”

Nick eyed the pool like it was the Naughty and Nice List. Finally seated, Nick had his knees curled up to his chest.

“What is that smell?” Nick asked, whatever it was, it had to be coming from the pool and it almost made Nick’s eyes water.

“That’s chlorine, it’s a chemical or something that keeps the pool clean,” Seth laughed, “Don’t worry about it, just swing your feet in.”

When Nick still eyed the pool suspiciously, Seth sighed.

“Fine. I guess you leave me no choice.”

An assaulting series of aqua blue splashes sprayed Nick. Seth threw his head back and laughed at the Nick’s gaping mouth and wide eyes.

“Wha-What was that for?!”

“You gotta chill out, Nick! You gotta trust me, if I thought that a swimming pool was going to kill you or something I wouldn’t have taken you here! And _this_ is what you get oh ye of little faith.” Seth grinned.

With water droplets making steady streams down his face, making his wavy hair curl up, Nick’s face changed from surprise to something slightly more devious. Seth had an idea what Nick might have in mind, and in less than a second he was proven right. In one swift motion, and with an amount of strength that startled Seth, Nick sent the shorter man sprawling into the pool.

Seth bobbed up and gasped, a gigantic smile immediately taking over his features.

“There we go! That’s what I’m talking about, Nick!”

Nick started giggling wildly and inadvertently let his legs drop into the water. He laughed with his whole body even as he tried to reel it in. Seth waded closer, his body still prickled with goosebumps, and Seth got an idea too.

“You know, Nick... _payback’s a bitch!_ ” Seth leaped up and grabbed Nick into a full body hug, pulling Nick right in with him.

Nick squeaked at the sudden coldness of his legs and... _lower_ body being submerged. Seth laughed furiously at the the way Nick shivered and huddled in place.

“Come on, buddy, I promise the more you move around the warmer you’ll be!”

Seth splashed Nick once more and he started to waddle around in the water after Seth. By the look of Nick’s stiff walking movements, a thought occurred to Seth. He suddenly slowed to a stop, and rested back into the water.

“Hey buddy, can you swim?”

“What?”

“Swim. You know, doggy paddle, breaststroke?”

“Breas-What?! Seth!” Nick’s eyes went wide and a hand flew up over his mouth.

“Relax,” Seth chuckled, “it’s the name of a kind of swimming. Like this,” Seth demonstrated a motion that reminded Nick of one of the puffins sliding on their belly on the ice, “ _This_ is the breaststroke. But I didn’t know Santa had a dirty mind--duly noted.”

“Oh, uh, I-I didn’t mean…” Nick stammered.

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Seth winked, “Anyway, the first thing to learn about swimming is how to kick your legs.”

Nick thought that seemed like a weird first step but obliged Seth. He stood in place and kicked his legs out in front of him. This only served to make Seth chuckle.

“No, buddy. Here let’s try this,” Seth stood in front of Nick and held out his hands, “hold onto my forearms. Now we’re going to crouch into the water.”

Seth’s arms were slick from the water but warm to the touch.

“Like this?”  
“Perfect. And now, while you hold onto me I want you to lift your legs up and start to kick out _behind_ you instead of _under_ you. Got it?”

Nick did not get it. But something about the commanding way Seth said the words got under Nick’s skin and he didn’t want to disappoint him.

The motions came far more naturally to him than he had expected. He found that if he didn’t think about the actual motions and just _did_ them instead, his muscles took over on their own. Like some part of his brain roughly knew the mechanics of swimming even if his limbs didn’t wholly cooperate. Whenever he felt like he was losing balance, Nick gripped Seth’s arms tightly, and Seth gripped tightly in return.

“I gotcha, buddy.”

Once again, the words came out in that same authoritative way. Nick was more surprised at his new-found abilities than Seth, who simply smiled at him.

“You’re doing great, Nick. You got this!”

_Music to my ears._

  
  
  


For nearly two and a half hours, Seth taught Nick the rudimentary skills of swimming and different strokes. And, for his effort, Nick got more than one nose-full of stinging chlorine water. Despite the amount of pool water that sloshed around in his stomach, Nick didn’t think he stopped smiling once. For those two and a half hours, Seth was never more than an arm’s length away and constantly reached out his hands to steady Nick. 

At one point, while Seth was teaching him how to glide along on his back, Nick looked up into Seth’s beaming eyes. Seth was grasping his shoulders so warm and right, the sun danced across the shorter man’s chest, and Nick weightlessly floated along. Nick realized that he had never felt true contentment until that second. There was no other place he wanted to be, nothing else he was worried about, and no one in the world that he loved mor--

_Oh. My. Garland._

That was the moment that it all _clicked_. Every single thing he’d pushed aside, every feeling or thought he’d steered away from because he didn’t have the words to explain it. Every emotion that had made his stomach flip. This, whatever it was, is the reason he could listen to Seth talk about anything--even his commenting on the nightly news that Nick didn’t even pretend to understand--for hours and be lulled by the rhythm of his voice. This was the reason the slightest sliver of Seth’s usually-covered skin, or the glow of his smile sent Nick’s thoughts into a flurry.

_I think I love Seth Meyers._

Not the kind of love he had for Ellie, or for Cousin Gabe. This was not even close to that. Nick looked into Seth’s eyes the way his mother and father used to look into each other’s eyes. He didn’t just love Seth, he was _in love_ with Seth.

This was also the moment that Nick completely forgot that he was supposed to be balancing and would’ve dropped into the water if a slightly confused Seth hadn’t still had his strong hands on Nick’s back.

“Are you okay, man?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moments in Nick and Seth's life as they learn more about one another.  
> Fluff and angst combination.
> 
> WARNING: Feelings and discussions on homophobia.

After the day at the pool, something had abruptly and irrevocably changed. The air was just different between the two. There seemed to be a sharp contrast between their Pre-Pool and Post-Pool selves. There were more frequent awkward silences and unsettling glances, but there were also moments of pure bliss that shook the ground they stood on. But it was always either/or, try as they might, there just wasn’t a middle ground. If Seth’s skin wasn’t prickling from Nick not-so-subtly stealing glances at him over the top of a worn paperback, then his heart was squeezing at the feel of Nick’s fingers running through his short hair on a mission to tame one of many cowlicks. And if Nick’s brain wasn’t any empty cavern at the sight of just a sliver of Seth’s abdomen during their sunrise yoga, then he was squirming in his seat when Seth leaned over and brushed an eyelash off Nick’s cheek and let his thumb hover a moment longer than necessary. The highs and lows had both on edge at all times, and neither had ever felt more like this before. 

Life had gotten fucking  _ interesting. _

  
  
  


As they continued their dance around one another, life moved on. They continued working on Nick’s yoga technique, with Seth ever more aware that Nick had started to build a few muscles he hadn’t had a month ago. And, oddly enough, Nick didn’t seem as clumsy and gangly as Seth thought he was. Nick just seemed more in tune with himself, and immeasurably less keyed up. He had a devastatingly endearing, newfound confidence that twinkled in his eyes. Of course, these were all observations Seth planned to take to the grave with him. In addition to his learning about yoga from Seth, Nick had picked up a few books about the more spiritual aspect of the practice. He had already started telling Seth about what energy each of their poses engaged, and even though he was already well aware, by no means was he going to interrupt the taller man and risk dashing away the glow he seemed to emit when he couldn’t seem to stop talking. Apparently, when Nick was fascinated by something, he could go on about it forever, like a five-year-old who just got a book about dinosaurs.

Seth seemed to be learning new things about Nick everyday. One of the weirder fascinations Nick had Seth completely by surprise. One evening, as they had finished yet another episode of  _ The Office _ , Seth looked down and realized that the adorable man had slumped against his shoulder was now lightly snoring. Careful not the jostle Nick, Seth had grabbed the remote off the coffee table and turned the volume way down before flipping over to the news. He used to watch the news every night, a habit he had picked up when him and his ex had been fighting and she had requested that he sleep on the couch while she was still working through things. Of course, he didn’t really get his bed back until she moved out. He had continued to watch the nightly news daily even after she had left, though. But it wasn’t until he put the news on that he realized that he was way out of the loop on what was going on in the world. He probably hadn’t watched it in a few weeks, what with the studio and...Nick. Who was he kidding, Nick was really the only reason he had just  _ forgotten _ something he used to obsess over.

His lips started to pull up into a smile. He didn’t need it anymore, he didn’t need the news to distract him like he used to. There was nothing to distract him  _ from _ in the first place. Especially not with the warmth of Nick’s breath washing over his shoulder through his t-shirt. He was definitely in a much better place than he was back then.

Seth had just decided to flip around for a sitcom when he heard the program’s silver-haired news anchor, Anderson Cooper, say:

_ “It’s time now for the RidicuList...” _

Well, he could watch the RidicuList, it had always been one of his favorite segments since it was always light-hearted and not the real depressing shit--the  _ news _ news. He had especially enjoyed the occasions that Anderson would start to giggle--a joyous noise that made him sound like a thirteen-year-old girl. Now  _ that _ was one of the most wholesome things on television. Much to Seth’s delight, this RidicuList seemed to be getting the better the the news anchor who was already fighting back his laughter.

Seth didn’t realize he had been laughing so hard himself until he felt Nick stir and rub at still-closed eyes.

“  _ Seth  _ …?” he mumbled

“Sorry, buddy, I’ll be more quiet.”

Suddenly, however, Nick’s eyes flew open and he nearly fell into Seth’s lap. He grabbed the remote and cranked up the volume, practically squealing at the sight. Now...this threw Seth fa little.

“Seth!!! It’s  _ Anderson Cooper _ !!! I’ve never  _ actually seen _ him talk before!!!”

“How do you even  _ know _ who Anderson Cooper is?” Seth’s brows were furrowed even though he couldn’t keep a smirk from tugging at his lips.

“I had a magazine of him at the North Pole!!! Goodness, gracious, I  _ love _ his eyes.”

Nick was beaming and Seth’s mind lost track of any follow-up questions he had at the sight. Nick was giggling like Seth had never seen before and it was incredibly contagious. Especially when Seth could actually feel the bubbling of the taller man’s laughter where he had leaned back against Seth again.

Maybe he wouldn’t swear off the news entirely, especially if it made Nick in  _ this _ goddamn happy.

_...and cut _ e.

  
  
  


As Nick explored Seth’s world he, of course, learned more about Seth. Sometimes it was little things like that Seth hated pudding cups while Nick absolutely adored them. He said it was something about the consistency--the texture that bothered him, but Nick thought that sounded like utter nonsense. The weird slurp-iness of it was all part of the experience! Nevertheless, Nick made sure that he always set out chips for lunch, even if all  _ he _ was going to eat with his sandwich was pudding. Sometimes, though, he found out something that felt monumentally important--even if it was objectively silly. Sometimes, quite accidentally. 

Seth always showered during the gap between his early morning class and his 10 a.m. class. Nick was always made sure that, if he was going to shower that day, he was in and out well before it was Seth’s turn. It was just a part of the flow of the day. Nick however had begun to shave while Seth was showering (Seth had been horrified the first time Nick had asked if Seth had a nice, sharp “shaving knife” that he could borrow ( _ “What is this?! The Oregon Trail?!” _ ).

They laughed and talked about their plans for the day, and if he were honest this was the real reason he made a point of shaving at this particular time. It also didn’t hurt that Seth would towel off after he’d turned off the water and emerge from behind the curtain with only the towel slung low on his hips. Nick looked forward to the site every day, to the glances he’d get to steal in the mirror as Seth walked behind him to get clothes from the dresser out in the main room. It was just another thing the Nick accepted as part of their Post-Pool dynamic. 

One day, however, Nick had lost track of time at the library and came up to the apartment only to hear the shower was already running. He had assumed that Seth heard him come in since the bathroom door was wide open. As he sat down on the sofa, about to dive into one of his new library finds, he heard the water shut off. He looked up through the open bathroom door, already grabbing a few of the movies he wanted to show Seth, and the curtain pulled back. Except, instead of the low-slung towel Nick was so familiarly accustomed to, Seth only loosely held the towel in front of him as he scrunched up his hair. Nick couldn’t  _ really _ see what he knew was full well was loosely still hidden by the towel but, nonetheless, seeing the dips where Seth’s hips and thighs met--for the first time ever--was more than enough to leave him speechless. Seth still hadn’t seemed to notice that Nick sat, entirely transfixed, on the couch. He stepped over the lip of the tub facing the shower to pull the shower curtain slightly in the center so everything would dry nicely, inadvertently burning the image of his olive-toned backside into Nick’s brain forever. 

_ Daaaamn, yoga looks _ good  _ on you, Seth Meyers. _

Nick’s brain suddenly snapped back to common sense and he averted his gaze as quickly as he could.

“H-Hi, Seth,” he squeaked.

The shorter man nearly jumped out of his skin. 

“Holy shit!” he yelped, quickly clutching the towel around his waist.

“S-Sorry, I thought you heard me come in…” Nick still had his eyes fixed on the floor.

“Jesus, whoa,” Seth’s startled voice suddenly morphed into a nervous giggle as he took in what Nick was sure was his blushing, averted expression, “Huh, sorry, buddy. ‘Just startled me is all.”

“I-I promise I didn’t see anything…’’

“No, worries, Nick. Besides, who wouldn’t want a look at all this,” Seth chuckled as he made his way over to the dresser.

“I d-don’t know who wouldn’t.”

“It was a joke, Nick,” Seth called from somewhere behind Nick.

There was a beat of silence before Nick’s itching conscience got the better of him

“Actually...I wasn’t  _ completely _ honest. I did see a little bit...”

“Oh?” Nick heard a genuine edge of curiosity in Seth’s voice with a dash of smugness.

“Yeah...what’s your tattoo of?”

Seth let out a deep belly laugh and even without looking at him, Nick could picture the way Seth threw back his head when he laughed. Then Seth reappeared in front of him, fully clothed, and sat in the comfy chair to put socks on.

“That? It was a dumb shit thing I got when I was nineteen,” Seth’s eyes sparked with memory, “Yeah, I got a little Scooby Doo tattoo.”

“A what?”

“Oh, I guess you wouldn’t know who that is, would ya,” Seth pulled up a picture on his phone and turned it to Nick, who only only quirked his brows at it.

“I don’t get it.”

“There’s nothing to get, I was a teenager and I thought it’d be hilarious,” Seth smiled down at the picture.

“Any particular reason it’s on...your caboose?”

“Did you just call my ass my  _ ‘caboose’ _ ?”

“Well, I was trying to think of a more polite way of saying it, Seth Meyers, but yeah. Why is there a cartoon dog on your _ ass _ ?” Nick was smiling too now.

“Well, Scooby Doo owes his placement to the fact that I really wanted a tattoo...but also really wanted to hide it from my parents. They found out anyway, but they were just relieved that it was out of sight. Well, out of sight if I’m not buck naked, I guess,” he waggled his eyes at Nick.

How was Nick now the one who felt embarrassed when he literally almost saw Seth’s... _ you know _ , like two minutes ago? Something about the knowledge of the tattoo pawed at his brain. He was now on a short list of people who had ever beheld Seth’s tattoo--and his ass. It felt strangely intimate. He now actually had something in common with Seth’s very serious ex-girlfriend. The thought still simmered under his skin as he got out the library movies and started asking Seth which one he wanted to watch that night.

  
  
  


At some point, after library trips were slowly adopted into their weekly routine, Seth’s library card had mysteriously ended up in Nick’s possession and Nick made even more frequent trips every few days, returning with books and movies he was always ecstatic to show his lithe friend. And though some of his choices were interesting to say the least, Seth realized early on that there was no point in trying to steer Nick away from certain books. At first he had tried to steer Nick away from the Stephen King displays and over to the YA section, once Nick started going by himself all bets were off. If a book was too much for him, Nick usually abandoned it--sometimes, after having to have a discussion with Seth on how a government could possibly make teenagers battle to the death in an arena for the amusement of the wealthy. That had been a tough one for Seth to explain for sure. Only once, though, had Seth truly been shook up by what Nick was reading.

Nick usually prepared lunch during Seth’s upper division classes. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t have been able to keep up with the more advanced yoga students, he had really grown into his own yoga-wise by this point, but when Seth had mentioned it Nick had seemed reluctant. He had finally admitted that he actually really like making lunch for the two of them and didn’t want to give that up. The sentiment had almost been unbearably sweet to Seth that he’d just left it alone. So, as was their routine, Seth walked up the stairs from the studio and unlocked the apartment door expecting to find sandwiches and bowls of salad to be set out on the table but instead found Nick wrapped into a ball in the comfy chair solely focused on the book in his hands. His face was beet red and his eyes were slightly agape, and he hadn’t even seemed to notice Seth yet. He had always flicked the corner of the page when he read, an unconscious tick that got under Seth’s skin in all the right ways, but this time he was furiously fidgeting with the corner and Seth was a little worried he might accidentally rip it.

“Hey buddy, whatcha reading?”

Nick jumped three feet out of the chair and yelped, quickly closing the book and sliding it under his thigh. Seth stumbled backwards a little, not at all sure what he just walked into.

“N-Nothing! Nothing! I just--I, uh, d-decided to start reading...um... _ Little Women _ …? It just got to a really scary part and so, you see, that’s why I jumped when you walked in and also why are you back so early it’s only--” but when Nick looked up at the clock his eyes got a little wider and he blushed impossibly more, “noon. The time you always come home...right…”

Seth had already kicked off his flip-flops and simply stood staring at the cherry-red man as he rambled. If Seth didn’t know any better, he’d have thought he’d just caught Nick watching a porno. 

“ _ Little Women _ , huh?” Seth smirked, raising an eyebrow at that.

“Y-Yeah…?”

“Nick, do you even know what  _ Little Women _ is about?”

“Uh...women...who’ve been…shrunken…?”

“Not even close, bud.”

“They’re just really short women?”

“Nope.”

“Okay...so I wasn’t  _ actually _ reading  _ Little Women _ , but it is on my to-read list!”

Seth had been inching closer to the taller man who still sat awkwardly drawn in on the chair, trying and failing to hide the book.

“What I want to know is...” Seth was now staring down at incredibly guilty puppy eyes, “what on Earth you’re reading that’s got you so wound up?”

Seth lunged for the book, and although Nick saw it coming Seth was too quick. Nick tried to fist Seth’s tie-dye shirt to reel him back, but Seth had already flipped the paperback over and seen the title. And despite the strange giddy feeling he always got when Nick did something insanely cute, Seth could feel a blush creeping up his own neck.

“Oh, yeah. This makes sense now,” Seth eyed Nick mischievously, “What an  _ interesting _ choice, Nicholas Kringle.”

“It’s j-just a western!”

“Oh  _ Nick _ , darling,” Seth rustled Nick’s hair as he continued looking over the book, “ _ Brokeback Mountain _ is far from ‘just a western’. Buddy, this is purely romantic drama between two cowboys,  _ pretending _ to be a western.”

Nick’s eyes dropped to the floor.

“ _ You’ve  _ read it?” Nick squirmed in his seat.

“Hey...did you get to the tent scene yet?”

Nick’s head whipped back up to Seth so fast, he was actually worried Nick might’ve pulled a muscle. Seth knew that he was probably wearing a shit-eating grin like he never had before. Nick’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he settled on simply nodding in reply. Was it possible that Seth was about to witness spontaneous human combustion?

“Y-Yeah...that w-was what I was reading when...you came in…”

“Well, I’ll let you get back to it then,” Seth winked and handed the book back, Nick’s fingers brushing his as he did.

As he started to walk away, he heard the immediate rustling of pages, but he suddenly turned on his heel.

“Hey, Nick,” Nick’s dark eyes flashed up to him, “You know they made a movie out of that, right?”

Nick fucking  _ whimpered _ before catching himself and trying to mask it with a cough.

And,  _ shit  _ did that do all sorts of things to Seth he couldn’t even rightly describe.

“Show me?” Nick squeaked.

That day quickly turned into one of the strangest of Seth’s life. Not only was he processing perhaps the most famous gay movie of all time with the lifted veil of his... _ new discovery _ . And as if that wasn’t enough of an experience on it’s own, beside him Nick was slack jawed for nearly the whole thing with his knees up to his chest and eyes darker than the November night sky. Seth almost felt like he was corrupting the taller man who was perpetually driving Seth crazy wearing  _ his _ clothes, but the notion only served to make his scalp prickle all the more. During the tent scene, as Ennis and Jack began to move together on the screen, Seth stole a look at Nick who was so glued to the screen that Seth could swear he could actually see Nick’s pulse thumping under his temple. At that moment, however, a strange expression crossed Nick’s face, a mixture of surprise and something Seth deemed so suggestive it had to be criminal, and Nick suddenly looked down at his lap--the surprise taking over his expression. Along with the deepest rosy blush Seth had ever seen.

“Oh,  _ fig _ .” Nick said, voice breathy and slightly choked.

Seth stood up so quickly he was almost lightheaded, and mumbled something about getting more popcorn before almost running out of the room.

However, as the movie went on, Seth’s giddy light-headedness dissipated. He hadn’t remembered just how depressing the movie was, and how soul-crushing it was to watch  _ Nick _ watch the tragedy of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist. Partway through, Seth looked over to see tears silently roll down Nick’s cheeks. The taller man had his knees curled to his chest and he kept running the back of his thumb along his lower lip in a way that knocked the wind out of Seth. He grabbed the remote off of the table and quickly hit the pause button.

“Maybe we should watch something else, Nick--”

Without taking his eyes off of the screen Nick had all but grabbed the remote out of Seth’s hand and hit the play button. It was the only time--other than when they’d watched  _ Ferris Bueller’s Day Off _ \--that Nick had ever seemed even remotely aggressive. And Seth didn’t have any clue how to respond.

“I need to know what happens, Seth. I  _ need _ to.”

Seth had just wordlessly nodded, and settled back into his place beside Nick. But his attention almost never left his friend through the rest of the movie as he tried to keep a mental list of all the things Nick might ask him about afterward. All the things he wanted to make sure Nick understood. 

_ It’s just fiction. _

Of course, even though the story itself is fiction, this kind of bullshit was the way it was up until the last ten years and the way it still was in so many places. 

_ Most people aren’t this bigoted anymore.  _

At least in his liberal-ish neighborhood, yeah, but Seth wasn’t stupid. There was still more than one state in the U.S. that Seth would be scared to walk down the street holding another man’s hand in. And many countries where he could be arrested or killed for such an act. 

_ It’s okay to be gay now.  _

Like he was one to talk, he hadn’t admitted it to himself for the majority of his life and still had trouble saying it out loud. 

_ Please, Nick, I know you are so open and curious and take things to heart, but please, please, please don’t take  _ this  _ to heart. _

As soon as the shot of Ennis crying over Jack’s shirt faded out and the credits began to roll, Seth braced for an onslaught of questions and wondered how he’d fucking  _ explain _ and  _ introduce _ the concept of homophobia to one of the most loving people in the world. But Nick had only opened and closed his mouth slowly without any words coming out. Still staring at the now-muted credits, Nick just brushed away the remaining tears from his cheeks, still balled up into himself.

“I-I think I’m ready for bed now,” Nick finally turned to look at Seth.

Suddenly, all the explanations and words Seth had wanted Nick to hear flew out of his mind like a hatch on an airplane had been opened mid-flight. Nick looked pale and utterly tired, though his eyes were still wide and disbelieving.

“Nick, it’s just a stupid movie--”

“Seth--”

“It’s just--”

“Seth, I don’t really wanna talk about it,” Nick slowly uncurled himself and began to make the pretense of fluffing his pillow and grabbing the folded up blanket up from the chair. Seth cautiously got up from the couch, not taking his eyes off of Nick’s movements.

“But...are you okay? I mean, I know that’s a  _ rough _ movie--”

“I’m fine, Seth,” there was no bite to his words, no emotion at all really which was definitely  _ not _ how Nick sounded when he was truly fine, “Like you said last time, some things just need to be processed slowly.”

“W-Well..I know the couch isn’t made up, so if you wanted to just share my bed again...”

And though his suggestion was meant to be comforting, like letting your child crawl in bed with you after they’ve had a nightmare, a truly pained look crossed Nick’s face. His eyes darted to the TV that he’d just turned off, before his features re-settled to just look exhausted again.

“Thanks, Seth...b-but I’m really tired and I was just going to skip putting down the sheets and just use a pillow and blanket. I’m fine. Really. Goodnight, Seth Meyers.”

“O-Okay.”

Nick flipped off the light switch before the word had fully left Seth’s mouth, and crawled under his main blanket on the couch in record time. 

As much as Seth really did want to talk about it, Nick did need time to let things process. And, honestly, he didn’t know if he’d ultimately just make things worse but pushing the issue before Nick was ready. In the end, the finality of Nick’s goodnight left Seth lying in his bed staring at the opposite wall, trying to pretend that he didn’t hear the barely audible crying coming from the couch.

Though Seth had tossed and turned over the terrifying blankness of Nick’s voice, over the next few days Nick seemed pretty much the same as always. Nick had avoided talking about the movie at all the following morning, but his smile had returned and he seemed as normal as he ever was. And if he seemed to touch Seth’s arm a little less or make less eye contact than usual, well Seth chalked it up to his imagination. They were still in constant orbit of each other so Seth couldn’t really complain. Besides, it was a good reminder to Seth that Nick was still new to this environment and he probably didn’t really get what kind of signals his smiles and touches were sending. He was probably this touchy-feely with other people he was close to--like his family-- Seth had just never seen it. Seth decided that it was probably the healthy thing in the end--even if it left him a bodily ache in his chest the first night Nick had decided to start sitting in the chair again during movie nights.

_ This is for the best. _

_ This is for the best. _

_ This is for the best. _

  
  
  
  


Over the last two weeks of November, Nick would not stop talking about Christmas. Christmas songs, Christmas decorating, Christmas baking (Nick could not wait to teach Seth how to make his family’s homemade eggnog), just about anything Christmas related was always on the tip of Nick’s tongue. On December 1st, which luckily fell on a weekend, Nick and Seth spent the whole day steeped in the Christmas spirit. Nick was thrilled. He had been up at the crack of dawn, for the first time impatient to get through their sunrise yoga time. At last they found themselves pulling out of the gates of the storage unit place where Seth, apparently, kept his Christmas decorations. Seth had had to explain the concept of storage units and why he was sure that someone wasn’t going to steal his stuff. He also had to explain why his tree came from a box, and was made of plastic. Something Nick still wasn’t sure he understood the purpose of. On the drive home ( _ I guess it kind of  _ is  _ my home now _ ), Seth had smirked, popped a David Bowie CD into the little slot under the dashboard and hit the up arrow a few times.  _ You’re gonna love this _ , he’d said. And holy holly did he! They’d spent the relatively short drive squirming and dancing in their seats to the music. The whole experience had lit Nick’s body on fire.

They had started with decorating the tree as soon as Nick could get the packing tape off of the tree’s box. Nick had insisted that Seth put on more David Bowie while they decorated--to which Seth happily complied. Seth showed Nick how to put the parts of the tree together, as well as how you had to fluff out the “branches” to make it look more realistic and less like it had been stuffed away for eleven months. They strung multi-colored lights around it that reminded Nick of a rainbow, sending colorful flashes across all of the walls. Then they started to hang up the ornaments from their packs, which Nick directed, of course. He made sure that the colors were all balanced and that not one ornament didn’t sit perfectly in its place. The surprised smile on Seth’s face at the pattern they had been creating let Nick know that his attention to detail did not go unappreciated. Nick couldn’t believe that this was his life, every time he looked over, Seth was already staring at him with a goofy grin that Nick couldn’t help returning.

Lastly, it was time for the star.

“The top of the tree is just a little bit out of my reach and I usually have to stand on my tip-toes...do you want to do the honors?” Seth chuckled, and handed Nick the chipped, golden star.

It was an incredible honor to put someone’s star on their tree. And, though Nick was pretty sure that Seth didn’t hold the task in as high regard as he did, Nick placed the star with as much care and love as he would...well, as he’d treat Seth. It had taken a few hours--probably due to all the dancing breaks they’d taken when Seth might belt out the chorus of “Under Pressure” while Nick laughed and rolled his eyes. But finally they took a step back and admired their work.  _ Their _ tree. And it was beautiful.

“Oooh! Shit, I almost forgot!”

Seth whisked away to his dresser drawer and fished around in it while Nick tried to nonchalantly see what Seth was up to from his place in front of the tree.

“Here!” Seth came bounding back, with a small box that fit in his palm and was wrapped in paper that reminded Nick of candy canes, “I, uh, got you an early Christmas gift.”

“  _ Seth _ ,” Nick’s heart squeezed in his chest at the cute little box and the way the tips of the shorter man’s ear had turned pink, “I-I didn’t get you anything yet...I didn’t know-know you’d have anything for today--”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it! It’s just, uh, just a small thing…”

Nick looked at the bashful smile that had creeped across Seth’s face and he wanted to give Seth the whole  _ figging _ world.

He started to tear apart the paper until he finally reached a small cardboard box which he popped the lid off of. In it was a small circular pendant made out of some kind of yellow, glassy stone with a hole carved out in the middle. A thin, black hemp cord looped through its center to make it a necklace. Nick held it between his fingers, his thumb gliding over its smooth, cool surface. It glinted slightly in the light and Nick only then realized that he had been holding his breath.

He looked up at Seth’s deep-set smile and realized his own face probably looked twice as giddy.. 

“So…? Do you like it? I mean, I just saw it in a store down the street the other day, and I guess I just--I don’t know, it just reminded me of you. I know you don’t usually wear stuff like this, and I mean if it’s not your thing, I totally get that--”

“I love it! Don’t be crazy, Seth,” Nick couldn’t hardly keep his thoughts focused with Seth nervously looking at him through those dark eyelashes, “of course I love it. Thank you so much!”

Nick slipped it over his curly hair and felt a little lump swell in his throat at the feel of it resting a few inches below his collarbone. Seth was fidgeting with his hands, a habit he probably picked up from Nick. But he was definitely smiling, and slightly biting his lip in a way that Nick had to force himself to take his eyes off of.

“You realize I’m taking this off, like,  _ ever _ , right?” Seth chuckled, eyes finally meeting Nick’s after a beat, “I’m serious, showering included. This thing is never leaving me.”

“I-I’m glad you like it.”

Before Nick could stop himself, he had his arms wrapped around the shorter man. Seth tensed but Nick’s stomach still dropped in horror. 

_ Stupid! You keep crossing the line, ya dumb donkey! _

But before Nick could pull away, Seth’s entire body relaxed into the embrace, set perfectly against the grooves of Nick’s body like they were two halves of the same whole. And, for a brief moment, Nick could feel Seth’s heart beating through the soft fabric of their t-shirts. Just as the time that Seth had spontaneously graced Nick with a joke-kiss to the cheek, the moment seemed to last a fraction of a second and a century all at once. And before he knew it, they were drawing back. And if Nick had thought Seth was blushing before...

“It’s awesome, buddy, thank you.”  _ I guess I picked up a few Seth-isms along the way, too. _

Seth’s laugh was a little more breathy than usual as he rubbed the back of his neck, “H-Hey, how about we get the Christmas cookies going?”

  
  
  


Seth had bought a container of white frosting for a cookie recipe he’d made a few weeks before Nick arrived--which seemed like a lifetime  ago. And just like with the waffles , Seth assigned Nick mixing duty and started getting the baking sheet prepped. They talked and laughed as they baked. Nick asked Seth more about the studio, and how he created routines. Seth asked Nick about his Christmas traditions, and what the North Pole was like, to which Nick responded:

“It has  _ everything _ …puffins, hot cocoa with peppermint, the workshop, elves, the reindeer, the elf news paper, my family’s cottage, and the Council of Elders.”

“What’s the Council of Elders?”

“It’s this thing where the elder elves of the North Pole meet and make important decisions about the fate of Christmas.”

“Oh, of course.”

Nick finished mixing before Seth had the cookie trays ready, so he sauntered over and set the mixing bowl on the counter beside the stovetop where Seth was working.

“How’s it going?” Nick said.

“Almost finished. You got the batter done already?” Seth said

Nick stood partly behind Seth, setting his chin down on the shorter man’s shoulder and nodded. Seth’s hands seemed to stop right in the midst of grabbing the cooking spray.

“Yup, it was just mixing a few things with the cookie mix, not too difficult. Let me remind you, Seth Meyers, I have been baking Christmas cookies since I could hold a whisk. Ooh, do you happen to have any food coloring?”

“Uh, y-yeah,” Seth grabbed the spray and sprayed the cookie sheet, “I’m sure I do somewhere. Maybe try over there.”

As Nick pulled away he had the sudden urge to just quickly peck a kiss onto Seth’s cheek. There wasn’t any real reason for it, just another impulse Nick had to wrestle down by drawing away as swiftly as possible. Their faces were just so close and Seth was just so... _ Seth _ . 

“I, um, I-I’ll check,” Nick mumbled, hissing as he accidentally knocked his hip into the counter. He turned to the cabinet away from Seth, not really caring if that was where the food coloring actually was. He just needed to put some distance between them for a moment and take a few deep breaths.

The longer he had known the incredible man a few feet away from him, the more of these ridiculous impulses he had to lock down. Ever since he and Seth had watched that cowboy love movie the week before, these urges had gotten far more frequent (or maybe he was just far more aware of how many he had mindlessly indulged). But it seemed Seth couldn’t even be in the same room as him anymore without Nick having to exercise a certain amount of self-control. He couldn’t help it if Seth sometimes reminded him of Jack Twist. Nick had even ramped up how much he meditated since that did seem to center him somewhat. Not only had he been fighting his own body at every turn, though, but he’d been fighting his own brain. The last three-quarters of the movie, in which Ennis and Jack had to sneak around to see one another and how they’d had to face the world around them--well, they were  _ miserable _ . Nick had wanted to scream by the end. Was how they felt about each other really that terrible? Was that how the rest of the world saw the love between two men? Was there something wrong about them being in love with each other? If there was, then was there something wrong with Nick? Was there something wrong about they way felt about Seth?

These questions seemed to march around in the back of his mind every waking hour. He had decided that being Seth’s close friend wasn’t the problem, the world didn’t seem to think that that was wrong. But things like kissing on the cheeking, or constantly touching Seth--that  _ was  _ wrong.

So, no matter how absolutely unavoidable his feelings and urges toward Seth seemed, if the movie taught him anything it was this: in this world,  _ in Seth’s world _ , two men can’t have a happy ending. Him and Seth could never share the kind of life and love his parents had. And he had to do _ far _ better at keeping himself in check. He’d been letting himself slip too much, like when he’d hugged Seth earlier, and even though he’d started sitting in the chair when they watched movies, he’d still let their feet get all tangled on the coffee table. And  _ that _ had to end. It was time to rein himself in. This was his problem, and the last thing in the world he wanted was to make it Seth’s problem.

His hand came up to the necklace around his neck and thumbed over the smooth stone, instantly he felt the two month-old  _ ache _ he’d had since he’d laid eyes on Seth.

_ Calm down, Nicholas Kringle, you’re still good friends. And that’ll just have to be enough.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter had more angst than usual, but thanks for sticking with me!!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! It was soooo much fun to write! I apologize if the formatting is a little off, I'm still trying to figure out how to publish things here.   
> I am hoping to have this whole thing done and published at least a week or two before Christmas 2019 :) I'm not quite sure what the chapter count will be yet, but I will hopefully get a a few more chapters posted really soon. Let me know what you think!


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